No Rest For The Wicked
by chantime
Summary: Bella is trapped: hooked on heroin, held as property, forced to sell her body to feed the addiction. Time brings her ever closer to what seems an inevitable death and Bella waits, uncaring, longing only for the next fix.That's when Edward arrives, beckoning to his Ferrari and grinning his inscrutable grin. He is handsome. Confident.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: **

**Who she was.**

Her name was Bella, and she sometimes thought she could smell her death,

blowing in from the cemetery that lay south of her building in East New York.

Sometimes she even hoped for it. Stinking, muttering, moldering death. Cold and

dark. On these occasions, she felt as if even the dirty embrace of the grave would

be better for her than the squalor she lived in now. She thought, maybe, she

might find some sort of peace that had been missing all her life.

Mike owned her building, like he owned the girls who occupied it. Three

stories tall, four rooms to a floor. They lived two in a room, two bathrooms per

floor, two kitchens in the building. Just over twenty girls, every single one of

them selling her body each night at his command. In return for the money they

brought him, he gave them food. He gave them shelter. He gave them drugs, and

the drugs gave them escape.

Bella was not supposed to be here. She reflected on that often, and if she'd

ever believed in a God, she'd have cursed him now. Fickle, twisted fate had

delivered her into Mike's arms. Promises of salvation, undercurrents of doubt,

desire, desperation. The cold prick of a needle.

She tried not to think about it.

Mike held the plastic bag filled with heroin above her now, like a treat

for a dog. Little better than a dog she was, really, down on her knees, eyes wet

with tears ready to spill over. Angry, vengeful Mike, so filled with hate. Hate for

his parents, who'd given him his gorgeous mulatto features and then abandoned

him on the street. Hate for his ex-wife, who'd left him immediately upon

discovering the nature of his business, but still found fit to take half of what it had

earned him. Hate for the girls he had made his slaves, and who had made him

rich. Hate for the very money they handed over to him every night.

Mike didn't know of his own hate, but it burned in him so brightly it

scarred his features. Twisted, cruel lips. Pinched brow. Bella might have

understood this hate, seen reflected in it her own self-loathing, but Bella spent

most of her time thinking about the heroin now. She had no sympathy for

Mike, or his girls, no sympathy for herself. Lucid existence was the time

between sleep and drug, drug and sex, sex and sleep. Short bursts of clarity, ever

more painful, amid an otherwise blurred, waking dream.

"Beg for it, Bella," Darren snarled, and Bella's mouth formed words of

penitence against her will, pleading through tears without even realizing she'd

meant to do it. She begged apology for some imagined slight, some invented twist

in her voice that had caused this punishment.

"Mike, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry for what I said!" But what had she said? She'd

only asked for her daily ration of the drug, in the same manner she had for the

past four months. If Mike had detected any real change of inflection, it hadn't

been intended. But here she was, on the floor, begging and pleading for

something she didn't even want. Begging and pleading and dreaming of death.

Born Marie Isabella Swan. Bella would have gladly held it up as

evidence before God that, whatever mistakes she had made in her life, never

appreciating her parents was not one of them.

For her first fourteen years, she was Marie, and no one was allowed to call

her otherwise. Maturity had lent a different outlook, and she had begun to see the

name as a sign of what was becoming a fierce individuality. She would never like

it, perhaps, but she was most definitely not an Marie.

She'd left her father at the age of sixteen, her mother long in the grave.

Alcohol, and the overwhelming desire to fill the void Bella's mother had left, had

brought rage and lust into him when before he'd felt only apathy for the girl. He'd

never touched her, either in punishment or in passion, but the tension and the

fighting, starting around her twelfth birthday, had over the course of years grown

unbearable. At times Bella found herself wishing he would simply rape her, so she

could have him arrested. She wondered if that was a healthy line of thought, and

decided it likely was not.

She took with her very little when she finally left. She had very little to

take. Trinkets, clothes, shoes … these things meant nothing to her, as during life

her mother could never be bothered to pass down any of the traditional, societal

definitions of womanhood. Could never be bothered with her daughter at all,

really, nor with her husband. Bella had learned by herself about womanhood, in

back alleys and cheap motels, years after her mother had died. Her education

handed down by what men told her to be, what they told her to do. Promises of

love, drops of blood on the sheets.

When that didn't work, when she realized she could be more than this, it

came as an epiphany. A rare glimpse of sunlight in an otherwise dark life. She'd

left her father, apoplectic with desire and dismay and alcohol-fuelled rage. She'd

left behind their hole of an apartment. She could do better on her own.

And she had, for a time.

Pool was easy, the angles naturally making sense to her. Slipping into a bar

even easier. New York City cops had far better things to worry about. Bouncers

knew it, owners knew it, and a patron was a patron. Particularly short, pretty

brunettes with good legs and a cute face. The type of girl who could entice an entire

crowd of rowdy young men to stick around for more drinks, dropping dollar after

dollar into pool tournaments that, invariably, they lost.

She didn't go home with these men, though many had asked, and in the

end this factored into her undoing. Descent and rebirth, and descent and rebirth

again. These men could not understand her, or why she spurned them. She'd

leave them with a knowing smile, standing dismayed in the street. Sometimes she

kissed them lightly, thanked them for their interest, but always with that

mischievous gleam in her eyes, that sardonic grin on her face. The look that

proved that, regardless of pretty words, she took vicious pleasure in walking

away.

It was power, and Bella revelled in it. The ability to make men throw their

money, their bodies, their hearts at her. Lots of men. Lots of bars. She walked

away from every one … walked away grinning her savage grin. For eight months

Bella lived, celibate as a nun, feeding on the hearts of men.

Eventually they tired of it. Patrons began complaining. Bouncers began

carding. Bets around the pool table, even when Bella could manage to enter the

bar in the first place, dried up. People had heard of her. Bella was forced to give up

the pool earnings, and her tiny studio apartment with the mattress on the floor,

the only piece of furniture she owned.

One bar remained, the only one at which she'd allowed herself to develop

friends. The owner, Eric. The bouncer, Ben. She didn't play her game here. She

didn't taunt the men, break their hearts. It was here she went when she wanted a

glass of beer and a conversation. It was here she turned now, desperate for

somewhere to stay. Ben offered the use of his apartment. Bella didn't decline the

offer.

Her relationship with Ben was entirely platonic. This surprised her;

surprised both of them. Bella was attractive, young, charming. Ben was in his

mid-twenties, with a powerful build and a handsome face. Bella would have

broken her celibacy for him, if he'd asked. Sometimes she wished he would. Ben

never did, and Bella came to realize that he could not. He knew her age. He knew

her past. It would have felt like taking advantage of her, regardless of her own

willingness.

After nearly eighteen months of living with Bella, Ben had been forced to

turn her out. He was in a new relationship with a young woman named Angela, a

blind girl he had met with her seeing-eye dog at a jazz club, and this new

girlfriend worried about him sharing a studio apartment with a teenage runaway.

Eventually Angela warmed to Bella, and would likely have accepted her as a

roommate in a new, larger apartment, but by then it was too late. By then Mike,

and the needle, had hold of Bella. For better or for worse, it would change her life

forever.

"Please, Mike …" Bella whimpered.

Mike, towering above her, the bag still in his hand, the sneer on his face

half grin, half expression of disgust. She could see this excited him, plain as day.

To her own surprise, she found that she couldn't blame him for it. Bella knew the

aphrodisiac of power. Hadn't she played with it for years before, outside of those

dimly lit bars that lined the city streets?

"You were a bad girl," Mike growled. Bella repeated his words, agreed

with him, petulant, her breath hitching. But now the tears were drying. She

thought she knew how best to resolve this. Was her lower limp trembling just a

bit more than necessary? Were her eyes just a bit bigger?

"I was a bad girl," Bella said again, and arched her back, drawing out the

words like warm honey on her tongue.

Pain flashed across her face, sudden, explosive, unexpected. Bella recoiled

from the blow. Mike's expert delivery rarely left marks, but it hurt no less than

any other slap.

"Don't play that shit with me, girl."

Bella looked up at him, sniffling. The slap had brought fresh tears to her

eyes, and she blinked them away.

"Say you're sorry, and mean it." Mike looked down at her like a dark

king, and Bella realized that this had been just another in a long series of lessons.

Mike was in control. Mike was the boss. Mike was _God_, dispensing pleasure

and pain at his whim.

"I'm sorry, Mike." Bella meant it. No tears, now. No hysterics. Just rapid

breathing, clenched teeth. The need was a tight ball in her stomach. She tried not

to look at the heroin. She tried to look at the windows, the clock on the desk,

anything else. Again and again her eyes returned to the bag.

"Take it and get out." Mike tossed the bag into a corner, and turned to

his ledgers. Bella scrambled after it on all fours, like the dog Mike had trained

her to be. By the time she was out the door, shouting some hurried, half-meant

words of appreciation after her, Mike had forgotten entirely about her.

Her roommate's name was Jessica. The girl had been in the business for

fourteen months, a fact that repulsed Bella whenever she gave it even a moment's

thought. Jessica was a sweet, honest, quiet girl. She had become wrapped up with

the wrong people. These people had led her to heroin, and heroin had led her to

Mike. Mike had led her to the clients, of which there were many. Jessica was

an absolute premium, the Rolls Royce of Mike's line of whores. Even after

fourteen months, she was still the youngest girl in his service; only twelve. Her

work earned more in a weekend than most earned in a month.

Bella believed she didn't think about this, but looking at the bags under

Jessica's eyes on a Sunday morning when the little girl returned, tired and often

bruised, to shoot up and go to sleep, was like a physical force hammering on her.

They'd shared a sister-like relationship at first, but Bella had been forced to

establish some distance after a nightmarish group-job they'd been ordered to

perform. This had happened occasionally since, and perhaps the most horrifying

thing about the events was the way in which Bella had become inured to them.

She and Jessica were popular, as individuals and as a group. Bella, with her

large eyes, upturned nose, and small breasts, could pass for much younger than

she really was. She received the clients who _wanted _to fuck a twelve-year-old, but

who still retained some sort of conscience, some semblance of a soul. Jessica's

clients, as far as Bella could gather, had no soul at all.

Sweet lips, big blue eyes, long blonde hair tucked back in a ponytail, Jessica

was swinging her legs over the edge of her bed, watching Bella. Her client had

backed out tonight, but as he'd pre-paid, Mike had treated Jessica to a night off.

She had absolutely nothing to do and this, compared to her normal nights, was

bliss.

Bella cooked the heroin, pulled down her pants, and pushed away her

underwear, exposing the joint between thigh and pelvis. She still shot up here, a

remnant of the days when she'd hoped to escape, the days when she was still

concerned about needle tracks. She had no qualms about exposing herself in

front of Jessica. How could she? Jessica, in turn, registered no expression of

disturbance or concern as Bella slid the needle into her skin, pressed the plunger,

set the syringe on the dresser.

The effect of the fix was near-instantaneous, as always. First the burst of

pleasure, warm and pulsing like an orgasm. Vision blurred, muscles relaxing,

Bella seemed to float off into a cloud of euphoria. She lay back on the bed, hands

crossed behind her head, and heard Jessica speak as if from the end of a long

tunnel.

"I saw the baggie in the trash. Did you steal Renee's shit again?"

_Stupid bitch leaves it out, what does she expect? _Bella thought. She didn't

need to answer Jessica. The question was rhetorical.

"You're going to hurt yourself." The concern in Jessica's voice was lovely in

its innocence. Bella drew in a shuddery breath, happy to let the drugs do their

work. Caring was pain. Apathy was bliss.

"No one gonna miss me when I'm gone," she told Jessica, still looking up at

the ceiling.

"I'll miss you."

Bella smiled. Of course Jessica would miss her … until the drugs and the

pain and the sheer horror of their life took her, too. Assuming Jessica outlived her

in the first place.

Bella dozed.

_Tell me what you thought…_

_Chantenique_

_Xxx_

_R&R!_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Descent and rebirth.

In April of the previous year, Bella had decided to take a walk, an innocent enough beginning to this disgusting end. She was not a foolish girl. She knew better than to wander down the wrong streets at the wrong hour.

Broad daylight and known streets seemed safe enough. She had spent the last few months in a homeless shelter, unsure of what to do next.

Slowly, though, she was learning new ways of making a living. She was not always proud of herself; there was no glory in shoplifting, no beauty in fishing wallets from people's pockets, no redemption in breaking into apartments. But she survived, and as her skills in these areas grew, so did the sum of money Ben held for her; deposit for a new apartment.

He didn't know where she obtained it, never asked, and probably tried not to think about it. Bella never volunteered the information.

She was ashamed, though she had no real idea what shame was at the time. Real shame would come later. Walking in the city, watching the men in the ethnic groceries unload their trucks, the women chattering in their exotic languages, children playing hopscotch in the street.

The sights, smells and sounds of New York were all about her, and Bella enjoyed them as she always had. She felt no fear of the city, or any of the constricting claustrophobia it inspired in so many others. Bella loved New York, because it was like her. It made no excuses for itself, hid nothing of its nature.

New York was the sum of its many, many components, and yet so much more. A common, garden-variety mugging was all it had taken to send her spiralling down into a life of alternating horror and numbness.

A grab from an alleyway, the click of a gun, a grunted threat. Bella would have given them money, if she had money to give. Would have given it happily. She knew now she could live without it. She had no illusions of bravery. When someone pointed a gun at your head and demanded your money, you gave it to him. She had nothing, not even pocket change. A pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a wallet with a wide selection of fake IDs … these were her possessions. Her attackers were unenthusiastic.

They decided that her body would serve as an acceptable form of currency.

If Bella had known the eventual outcome, she would've let them ravage her. Would've simply lay back and let it happen. If she'd known where her cries for help would land her, she would've suffered this singular violation in silence.

One night to salvage the rest of her life. She didn't know, couldn't know, and her cries brought her saviours, and her saviours brought damnation.

two young girls, brandishing a gun they didn't even know how to use, successfully chased the two men away. Bella lay in the alley, battered, bleeding, clothes torn from her body.

She was slipping rapidly into unconsciousness, but she tried to tell them to take her to Eric's. Tried to tell them about Ben and Angela, her friends. They would help her.

Bella couldn't make any sounds. She'd used up her voice calling for help. She heard a name: "Mike." Then, darkness.

Memories like crumpled Polaroid's, floating in a muddy pool. Blackness, loating, a flash of light, a voice asking her name, asking about her parents.

So gentle, this voice. She told the truth. Why shouldn't she? Her mother dead, her father gone. No parents for Bella, only the street.

Sharp sting of a needle, and then gentle bliss, descending down, back into warm darkness.

By the time her wounds had healed, and she was capable of getting out of bed, Bella was fully addicted to the heroin Mike brought her once a day.  
Days passed. Escape. Why not? The heroin already held her in an iron grip, but heroin was in ready supply. She would not submit to Mike's ownership, would not accept him as her source of the drug. She would not let him own her as he owned those other girls.

She left him in the subway. Sliding onto the train, darting out from between the doors just as they closed, laughing and cursing as his angry face slid away.

People all around her not-looking, a New York practice perfected to an art form.

Bella stole food and drink from a news-stand, ran from subway cops, still laughing.

Withdrawal came, and Bella was horrified by how quickly her willpower dissolved under that onslaught of pain and need. Unable to steal enough to get what she needed, she had found a dealer and paid for the heroin with the same currency Mike had initially proposed.

The irony of this was not lost on her as she lay there, burning from fever, the pain of withdrawal lancing through her, and let this strange man thrust into her again and again.

When it was done, she felt sick and defiled, but could not stop herself from asking for a fix. The dealer gave her a needle, and disappeared to obtain the rest of what she had paid for.

Bella shot up, nodded, dozed, and unaware that she was doing so. Thumps on the stairs, the door kicked in, Mike's face, raging, screaming, dragging her by the hair down the stairs, naked, jagged splinters embedding themselves deep within her thighs. Wailing as the car sped back to the apartments, shrieking as she was dragged into them and thrown into Mike's office.

There, Mike had beaten her in a manner both savage and methodical, using a leather belt wrapped around his fist, beginning with her legs and moving up her naked body.

Twice had Bella managed to get to her feet and run for the door.

Both times Mike had caught her, stronger and faster than this weak and strung-out girl. He had punched her in the stomach, threw her back into the corner, continued to hit her with the belt.

Finally, lying on the floor, naked and sobbing, unable to move, she'd learned what the small scar he'd burned into the webbing between her left thumb and forefinger meant.

It was Mike's mark, known to the other pimps and dealers, and they understood that returning one of his girls would be worth more to them than keeping her for themselves.

Bella was trapped, branded like cattle, and there was not a dealer in the world (or at least, the scope of that which made up her world) who would sell to her.

If Bella wanted the heroin – and within hours, she knew, the need inside of her would be a ball of fire racing through her veins – she would have to earn it.

She went out on the corner that very night, still bruised and aching, and stood on the corner with the other girls until one of the strange men in their dark cars finally pointed at her, and she went with him to a nearby motel.

Later, in the early hours of the morning, she lay on the floor of the shower, knees pulled nearly too her chin, arms wrapped around her calves, and let the hot water wash away salty, bitter tears.

"Get your ass up and get ready, Bella!" Mike shouted from down the hall.

He kept his office near his best earners, the dubious honour of which often went to Bella or her roommate.

"Get ready for … what?" Bella questioned, yawning and trying to clear her head.

The heroin had made her drowsy, and she had slept through the strongest part of the high. Now there was only the afterglow, and that was rapidly fading. Jessica was in the bathroom, probably getting high. She liked to use frequently but in small amounts, skin-popping or mixing the heroin with crack cocaine and smoking it. Bella preferred larger doses injected directly into a vein.

"Didn't I tell you? Must've. Your stupid ass just forgot." Mike's voice held a rare tone of uncertainty.

"Why is it, Mike, that every time you fuck up, it's my stupid ass that just forgot?" Bella muttered under her breath.

"Somethin' to say, bitch?" The words startled Bella. Mike had come down the hall as she'd been muttering to herself, and now stood in the door.

Bella looked up at him, the fear passing. The high was already fading, but the drug was still calming her, keeping her from sustaining any strong emotions.

"No," she told him. "Nothing."

"Fuckin' right. Listen, you got a client tonight. Weird motherfucker. I told him and told him, 'Look, we got girls fuck you twice as good, and look better doin' it too.'" Bella rolled her eyes.

Despite her worth to him, Mike never let a chance go by to put her down.

"He was real particular though. Said he wanted you, and motherfucker gave me a whole list of shit you supposed to wear. Listening?"

"Sure."

"Black panties, black socks, black pants, black shirt. Tie your hair back in a ponytail. Wear a gold chain. Make your pale-ass little white-girl face even paler. Black lipstick, dark eye-shadow, lots of liner. Shower first, and clean yourself well. One gold chain, no other jewellery. No deodorant, no perfume. He says it 'disagrees with him.' Don't look at me like that, I'm just quoting him."

"What … the fuck?"

"Look, if he wants you to look like some strung-out addict–"

"I _am _an addict." Bella grumbled her voice more insolent than was prudent. Mike looked at her for a moment.

"You'd do well not to mention that, or I could see some severe problems developing in your future," he said, dropping the street dialect.

this was a warning; Mike never adopted this manner of speaking with a girl unless she was perilously close to severe punishment. He'd cut a finger off the last girl. Cut her finger off and turned her out in the streets, bleeding and begging, in withdrawal, without a source of the drug. All alone.

"I'm sorry. Mike, I'm sorry!" Weak voice, heart pounding, Bella was amazed that she still had this much capacity for fear in her.

Mike sneered at her and left. As soon as she heard the door shut, Jessica peeked out from the bathroom. Seeing Mike gone, she moved back into the room.

"Even if you don't hurt yourself, you're going to make him hurt you sooner or later," Jessica said, and to this, Bella found, she had no reply at all.

"You look wicked!" Jessica clapped her hands and grinned.

Even Bella, preening before the mirror, had to admit that it was the truth. Her own predilection for black clothing had made dressing simple. The gold chain had been a bit harder, but it had been there, shoved into the back of a drawer.

It would probably be broken; Men liked to tear them off in the heat of passion.

But it had been requested, and Bella knew Mike would inspect her before she left. She was pale, her wavy brown hair tied back with a simple piece of black rawhide. Big, brown eyes now nearly luminous against her white face. Her silk blouse was low cut, her bra pushing her small breasts up and together.

Her jeans were tight, emphasizing her legs, which Bella had always thought the best part of her. She couldn't claim they were long; she stood at just over 5'4", but they were smooth and supple, shapely, the muscles not yet ravaged or wasted away by the drugs. She had no black lipstick. Mike's answer to this made her grimace.

"Borrow some from Lauren." Jessica arched an eyebrow. "This should be fun."

Lauren had attacked Bella in the kitchen a week ago, screaming something about Bella's using 'her shower.' Bella, who had no idea that shower territoriality was even of any significance, had been unprepared.

She'd stood up, and Lauren had shoved her backwards against the table. Bella had reacted instinctively, swinging back around and giving a shove of her own. Lauren had fallen backwards, and the altercation might well have ended there. Bella could see from the other girl's eyes that she was not accustomed to anyone putting up an actual fight.

Lauren was used to simply commanding and being obeyed. Bella had thought then of an earlier incident: Out of sheer spite, Lauren had forced Jessica to turn over all of her money, strip naked, and shove the clothes down one of the building's laundry chutes. She'd then stood at the top of the stairs and watched as Jessica climbed down into the dank, spider-infested basement to retrieve them.

The incident had given Jessica nightmares for Bella weeks.

A circle of girls had formed, though, and before either Bella or Lauren could walk away, they were shoved right back into the centre. Lauren, deriving confidence from the crowd, began shrieking again. Looking incredulous, Bella drew back her fist and punched Lauren in the mouth. All of the fight went out of the other girl in an instant, and she crumpled to her knees.

The blow had cost Bella the skin on her knuckles, but it had cost Lauren two teeth. Mike had arrived to prevent any further damage from being done, though Bella had no intention of pressing the attack.

He'd grabbed Bella, dragged her to his office, and slapped her twice across the face before grabbing her by the throat and forcing her up against the wall.

"Bitch had it coming," He'd conceded, "But now she can't work and she looks like a damn hillbilly. Who gonna pay for the dentist? Not me."

"I'll work extra," Bella had gasped, barely able to breathe, and Mike had seemed to find this amenable. He had let her go, told her to get the fuck out, gone back to whatever it was he did during the day.

Gasping and choking, Bella had made her way out, and had taken multiple clients a night for the next three weeks. Bella and Lauren had not spoken since, but now Bella had no choice.

She took a deep breath, and knocked on the door. No response. Bella knocked again, waited, grew angry. She hammered on the door.

"Lauren! I know you're in there. Open the fucking door or the next time I see you, I swear to God I'm going to make a necklace out of the rest of your teeth." Click of a lock being undone. The doorknob twisted in Bella's hand and she let it go.

Lauren's puffy, petulant face stared out at her.

"I was sleeping," she said, not a trace of it in her voice.

The dentist Mike had hired to fix her teeth had been neither sober nor careful, and there was a large, dark space between the girl's Bella false front teeth.

"I don't care. Mike says you have to lend me your black lipstick." Bella had taken half a step into the room.

Now she managed to move backward in time to keep the speeding door from hitting her in the face. She looked over at Jessica, who was standing in their own doorway. Jessica rolled her eyes. Bella turned back, preparing to kick the door in, when it opened. Lauren hurled the lipstick at Bella, who missed the catch. She heard it clatter against the wall behind her.

"Don't ever fucking ask me for anything again, cunt!" Lauren slammed the door closed again.

"You know, you really should get that gap in your teeth fixed, hon. Your S's whistle!" Bella called, her voice all sunshine and sugar. Behind her, Jessica burst into bright peals of laughter.

Her friends knew very little of Bella's new life. Ben, Angela, Eric; light that she used sometimes to drive away the dark.

Mike, the epitome of kindness, gave each girl two days of the month off. Bella's were the first and third Sunday, and she typically spent them at Eric's.

She would take the drug early; letting most of its effects wear off before arriving at the bar. She didn't want them to know. She didn't want anyone to know. They still suspected.

Her visits were too infrequent, yet too regular, for them to believe that she was "just busy."

Yet whenever Ben attempted to learn where she'd been, what she was doing for money, where the bags under her eyes had come from, the air went immediately cold.

Bella's expression would forbid further discussion, and Ben, for all his kindness, could not stand to hurt. He wouldn't interrogate her. Eventually, the questions stopped.

Bella felt sure that they knew of her occupation. She thought that Angela would have guessed by now, even if Ben was busy trying to fool himself. What was the most logical way for a young girl to survive on the street? Why would she give no information about it? She desperately hoped they didn't yet suspect the drugs, though she could feel her body beginning to break down under their onslaught.

Of this, far more than giving strangers the use of her body, Bella was ashamed.

To be enslaved so fully by something so darkly and desperately evil. Horror masquerading as bliss, disease and decay and death hiding behind a porcelain visage of joy.

When the drug ran new through her veins, Bella felt as if all problems had ceased to exist.

When it ebbed at its lowest, Bella spent her time staring out of her window at the cemetery down the block, thinking of death. Seeing Ben and Angela together depressed her.

Seeing Eric, Rachel the waitress, Flex the other bouncer, free to live their lives as they chose, slave only to their own whims and desires; it was terribly beautiful to Bella, and she was beginning to abhor this beauty. She was beginning to hate those she so desperately wanted to love.

Lately Bella had begun skipping even these visits, choosing instead to spend the day in bliss and forgetfulness and floating white.

Ben and Angela did not let on how much they knew because they understood how badly it would hurt Bella. They were sure about the profession, had strong suspicions about the drug.

Were it within their means, they would gladly have lifted Bella up and stolen her away from the life she had fallen into, but they could not.

There was no money to support her withdrawal, or enter her into a clinic, particularly given that such an act would likely procure wrath from unknown sources.

So they observed, horrified, as Bella began to fall apart in front of them. Her naturally light skin took on a sickly pallor, bags formed under her eyes; her voice fell to flat monotone.

Worst by far was the expression of complete apathy. Bella's body moved, her mouth formed sentences, but her eyes were dead. Angela wanted to confront her, at least to hear the truth.

This was one of the few areas in which Ben had ever denied her. He'd known Bella far longer, lived with her, and understood her. She was killing herself, but if they brought it up, he knew that she would only turn away, descend even further, and let the drugs kill her that much faster.

It was better to watch her die slowly, as they searched and hoped for a solution, than make it happen all at once. That was his line of thinking. Bella might have thought differently.

It took Mike a moment to remember to sneer when Bella entered the room, a sure sign that she had impressed him.

Bella stood before him, letting him survey her appearance. This was customary for Mike's top-tier girls.

"Not too fuckin' bad. Lose the purse." Bella tilted her head, surprised. Mike was fond of purses, liked his girls to carry them even if they had nothing to carry. He said they were classy. "Client wants you to leave it here. That shirt tight enough? It's starting to get cold out, and the client wants to _know _it's getting cold out." Bella rolled her eyes.

"He'll see. He'll know."

"Good. Get. Smoke on your way to the corner, because he doesn't want to see a cigarette for the rest of the night."

"How does he know I–"

"Don't know, don't care. Probably been stalking you. So what?" Mike looked her in the eyes, a rare occurrence. "Look: You make this guy happy. Price he paid up front for you don't even make sense. He goes home satisfied; I may throw in an extra ration for you." Bella's eyes lit up.

An extra ration was Christmas. Her birthday. The return of Jesus Christ himself. She grinned, turned, and left, tossing her purse into her room as she went by.

Outside it felt like autumn: cool and dry. Dark. It had been a hot September, but edges of winter were lurking on the wind. The nights would be cold, before long.

Bella lit a cigarette and glanced around. A girl with bright purple hair was leaning into the window of a police cruiser, smiling and snapping her gum. No trouble there. Across the street, a man was pretending not to look at the girls loitering around.

Was this her guy? If it was, he was welcome to stay where he was, looking nervous, for as long as he wanted. Bella was still comfortably held in the afterglow of her heroin, but this had passed enough for her to feel a twinge of annoyance.

The nervous ones were always a big pain in the ass. They needed constant reassurance. It was almost like babysitting, except it paid more, and you skipped right to the part where the father tries to cop a feel on the ride home.

But no, the guy across the street was heading toward another girl whose name Bella didn't know, and who looked nothing like Bella. The guy who had contacted Mike had known exactly who he was looking for. This couldn't be her man. Her client.

Mike insisted they call them "clients." Never "Johns" or, God forbid, "tricks." Bella supposed he thought that girls who were forced to behave in a professional manner when it came to the little things would do so instinctively for the big things.

Bella leaned against a lamp-post, looking down the street at the glowing pink neon perched in the window of an adult bookstore, waiting for the night to begin.

Bella dragged at her cigarette, blew smoke out into the October night.

There was no hint of rain in the air, and barely a cloud in the sky. The moon was a bright sliver, not the bloody, bloated full October moon that would arrive later in the month. Normally Bella used this time to prepare, strengthening herself mentally and emotionally to deal with whatever lay ahead.

Tonight, though … tonight was different. It was more than the simple promise of an extra ration. In truth, this was already slipping her mind. Tonight her heart was beating a little too fast. Her lungs pulled in air differently. The smoke from her cigarette, which had not bothered her in years, made her cough. She felt shaky, without shaking. Wound up tight in anticipation of something, but unable to determine what that something was. Tonight felt new.

The client, whoever he was, was late. Bella had been standing at her corner for nearly half an hour. Three cigarettes consumed, she loaded up on nicotine. She guessed it would do no good, that she'd be dying for one within a few hours, but the instinct was always to try. It never struck Bella as odd that she was, and had been, as much a slave to these little white sticks as ever she would be to heroin. Bella had not gone for more than a day without a cigarette since her eleventh birthday. They were as much a part of her life now as breathing, but they could be easily bought or stolen, and Bella had never wanted for them like she had for heroin. She'd give him five more minutes, and then she was going to her normal corner, to try to pick up some work. Coming home to Mike empty-handed was beyond

acceptable; it was nearly suicide.

This would not be a problem tonight; she looked good in what she was wearing. Bella dragged at her cigarette, tasted flame hitting filter, threw the butt into the street.

It was at this moment that she became aware of the presence behind her. Before she could move, before even she could process this feeling, a hand gripped her shoulder.

"Hello Bella," said a voice, and behind it Bella seemed to hear everything and nothing, now and forever, love and lust and hate.

She drew in a gasp without meaning to, a surge of adrenaline bursting through her body. The touch of the hand scared her, and called to her, like driving by the scene of an accident.

Then it was over. The hand was a hand. The voice was a voice.

She turned and looked at the man who stood behind her, wondering how he knew her name. In the momentary confusion that had swept over her, this was the question she'd clutched at to maintain her grip on reality.

Mike never gave out his girls' real names, nor allowed them to do so. It was forbidden. Clients had called her Marie for the entire time she had been in his service. How did he know her name? He towered over her. Maybe six feet, maybe more. Handsome face, tightened with what might be cruelty, what might simply be intensity. Jet black hair cropped close to his head, pale skin, oddly luminescent eyes that seemed tinged with yellow, the colour of dust in a shaft of sunlight.

He wore a black T-shirt, black jeans, and black trench coat. His thin, lanky body seemed unaffected by the gusting wind, like he could not even feel it. He did not flinch as their eyes met, only stared calmly. Bella couldn't look away.

"I am Edward." It was a proclamation. It was the quiet whisper of a lover.

**Thoughts?**

**It would mean a lot to me and my co-author, justin**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The lover

"Edward." Bella was breathless, unable to proceed.

_Oh, I'm drowning_, she thought, _I can't breathe_. She grasped again at her question. "Edward. How did you know my name?" Edward smiled, looked away from her for the first time, glancing down the street to their left.

Bella followed his gaze, and felt again that surge of adrenaline, this time from excitement, and pleasure.

Not twenty yards away was a piece of art in chrome and fiberglass, black like his clothes, black like hers.

Bella's father was an auto mechanic, and she knew her cars, but this was not a vehicle with which she was familiar. The lines of the car seemed Italian.

Without meaning to, without even thinking about it, she moved forward, looking over the car. Classic styling wrapped around a modern dash with air conditioning, an eight-speaker stereo, and scooped bucket seats. The prancing horse gave it away: Ferrari. It was immaculate. The convertible top was open, and she could smell the leather from six feet away.

"What kind is it?" Her voice was a whisper, and she realized that he couldn't possibly hear her. She had moved away from him, and had not heard him follow. Yet when she turned, he was behind her, and he smiled again, a predator's smile, beautiful and dangerous like his car.

"It's a Ferrari Five-Fifty Barchetta or it was when I purchased it. I've made some upgrades." Edward said.

Bella was again taken aback by the quality of his voice. She did not know the words tone or inflection, and might not have used them if she did.

There was something inexplicably aged about the way he spoke, yet the man who stood before her could be no more than five or six years her senior.

"Barchetta," she echoed, peering at the tires, the lights, the smooth curves of the wheel wells and powerful side scoops of the doors, the reflection of the city lights in its flawless shine.

She wanted to ride in it. Oh, yes. She thought at that moment she wanted this more than anything before in her life.

Edward took her hand now, and again that flash of fear and desire. He led her around to the passenger side, opened the door, and gestured for her to sit down.

Bella let out some sound of disbelief. Surely this was not right. She was a whore. A junkie. A thing to be used and discarded.

This car was beyond her, above her, in some other world. Edward only pressed gently on her shoulder, still smiling his dark grin. Bella sat down. The leather enveloped her like a second skin.

Edward shut her door, and Bella took the seat belt in a daze, buckled herself in. Edward sat down next to her, turned the key, and glanced over at her as the engine roared to life.

"Are you ready to _leave_?" He asked. The finality in his voice caught Bella's attention, the stress on this final word unmistakable. The words she had been about to say caught in her throat.

She swallowed hard, unable to speak, an indescribable emotion welling up inside of her.

Looking up at him, grinning, laughing though tears had sprung to her eyes. She nodded her head, emphatic. Yes, she was ready to leave. Yes, she wanted to leave. Yes.

Edward's smile became a wide-toothed grin for one brief moment, and there was something strange about it, but it flashed and was gone too quickly for inspection.

He put the car in gear and gently reversed, pulling out of his parking space and aligning the car. He revved the engine once.

Bella glanced down the street and to the left, and saw that Jessica had come outside to sit on the stoop and smoke a cigarette.

The younger girl was watching Bella and her client with interest. _Look at me, Jessica, _Bella thought, _I'm ready to leave. _Jessica seemed to sense this. She grinned and waved.

Edward stomped on the gas pedal. Bella was thrown back in her seat, unable to contain a laughing cry of fear and pleasure and joy, joy like she hadn't felt in years.

Edward took her through Brooklyn. He drove as if anticipating not only every traffic light, but every possible interaction with anything at all.

Never braking, never needing to swerve, he cut through traffic, making every green light, changing lanes before it even became apparent that he needed to.

He guided the car with preternatural ability, at speeds well above what should have been safe. Bella enjoyed every moment of it.

"Where are we going?" she asked at last, unable to sit quietly. She was too excited, nervous, and full of something approaching manic glee.

"Food." Edward glanced at her. "Nice place. You'll like it."

"Food?" Bella asked, bemused.

At its core, she knew well that evening represented a business arrangement. Never before had a client taken her out for food first.

Never before had a client done much of anything other than what was expected.

"Food." Edward nodded, and smiled his strange smile. Pulling away from East New York now, moving west.

Four miles, maybe five, the neighbourhood began to change. Brownstones replaced chop shops; the streets grew tree-lined.

High-end restaurants, Italian and Japanese and Turkish, packed with young men and women, sprung up.

Bella watched them, jealous of these people out eating and drinking, going on dates, living their normal lives. Edward made a left turn and continued down the street, the car drawing stares from everyone they passed.

_They don't know who I am! _Bella thought. _They don't know who I am! They just know I'm in this car. _Not herself, not the whore, not the slave. Not the girl who fucked for money and to earn the drug she could no longer live without.

Just an anonymous girl in an amazing car with a handsome young man. Was this who she was supposed to be? Was this what life was supposed to be like?

Sudden emotion, so strong it was nearly pain: here only a few miles from where she lived was a world just beyond her grasp, a world that she would never have.

This night would end. This pleasure would not last.

Bella took a shuddery breath, fighting back the onslaught of depression, the coming of tears. Edward slowed the car, looked over at her.

"Don't." Not a request, not a command. Almost a piece of advice. Bella looked up at him.

"I can't help it," she said. "I'm not used to this."

"Then you should focus on enjoying it." There was no sense of emotion behind Edward's words. He continued to look at her with his casual, nearly disinterested smile.

"I can't think like that."

"No?"

"I'm just a–"

"Stop." He cut her off, suddenly intense, the first time she'd seen his face animate, his expression change. He pulled the car over the side of the road and turned again to her.

When she met his eyes, they seemed to pull at her, draw her in, command her entire attention. She felt her heart speed, her breathing deepen. Fear? Lust? She couldn't be sure; she knew only that she could not look away.

"Who you were yesterday, this morning, two hours ago is immaterial. Understand that. Believe it. I do not choose to measure your worth by past actions. Of all of the women in this city that I could be with tonight, I am with you." Bella considered this.

"Why am I here, Edward? You don't need me. There's no way you need to pay for what I'm selling."

"Does it matter? Is it worth worrying about? Will it change what is?"

"No." Bella said, and was somewhat surprised to find she meant it. She felt the grip of despair loosen.

"Good. We're here." Edward gestured to the right of the car. Bella saw that they had stopped in front of a small Italian restaurant.

There was a raised terrace in front, where people were dining under heaters, their tables covered with long white cloths, silverware resting beside china plates. Most of them had turned to stare in amazement at the Ferrari.

"Does it bother you that everyone is constantly staring at your car?" Bella asked, stepping out onto the curb. Edward grinned.

"No," he said. "It keeps them from looking at me."

The restaurant was dim, lit by small sconces on the wall and by candles flickering on each table. It was warm, and smelled like herbs, garlic, and oil.

The woman at the door raised an eyebrow at Bella's appearance, but another woman behind her recognized Edward and quickly ushered them to a table near the back.

Edward requested a bottle of wine with an Italian name and watched Bella as she studied her menu, seemingly uninterested in his own.

The waiter returned with their wine, and Bella regarded it for a moment with a small amount of trepidation. Beer she knew, and hard liquor, but wine was a new experience, and she wasn't sure what to expect.

The drink, a Chianti, bit gently at her tongue and spread warmly over it. Bella smiled, relaxed. Edward nodded slightly at this, as if to himself.

"Good?" he questioned. Bella nodded.

He smiled, sipped at his own glass, and watched her with his preternatural calm.

"You look lovely," he said at last. Bella felt herself blushing, a reaction she would not normally have expected from herself.

Compliments from clients were common, nothing to be surprised at. This, though, felt heartfelt. More to the point, it seemed as if Edward was truly enjoying her as a person rather than an object.

She smiled, lowered her eyes, and took another sip of wine, unsure how to respond.

A waiter arrived, asking if they were ready to order. Edward waved him away, saying he didn't want anything, directing the attention toward Bella.

"Whatever you want," he replied to her questioning look. "Don't concern yourself with me, I'm not hungry."

Normally, Bella would have demurred, insisted that she couldn't eat if he wasn't going to, that she would feel odd. Normally, that would be the truth.

Tonight she was hungry, and felt at ease, as if she could do or say anything with Edward. Around him, she felt both as odd and as completely natural as possible.

She ordered chicken with angel-hair pasta in a red-wine sauce. The waiter took their menus and left them alone.

Edward sipped again at his wine, his eyes glinting above the glass, never leaving Bella. They were quiet for nearly fifteen minutes. Looking, drinking, and enjoying the air, the wine, each other's presence.

Edward did not prompt her for conversation, and Bella did not volunteer. The silence was oddly comfortable, nearly intimate. She seemed to fall into Edward's eyes, as if they need not talk, as if he knew what she would have said. Finally, Edward broke the silence.

"Where are your parents?" The question should have upset her, sudden and personal as it was, but Edward had delivered it in a tone which belied any judgment. It was nothing but a simple question, and Bella answered it as such.

"One's dead. The other might as well be."

"And this man who … employs you? What of him?" a slight sneer, not directed at her.

Bella laughed slightly, turned her eyes down momentarily, not from embarrassment so much as because it seemed she should.

"I hate him."

"Have you any friends?" At this, Bella looked momentarily pained.

"A few. They're … We're …"

"Estranged?"

"Something like that." Edward nodded, regarded her again with inscrutable calm. "Why do you ask?" Bella couldn't help it. She wanted to hear it out loud, wanted to know if the intentions he seemed to be so clearly communicating were true. Edward shook his head slightly, looked away for a moment, smiled his maddening smile.

"The food is here," he said, glancing over her shoulder. So it was, and it was very good. Edward watched her eat, sipping at his wine.

Bella had subsisted for years on instant noodles, microwave burritos, and fast-food value meals. She relished the pasta, with its dark wine sauce, full of tomato and garlic, herbs and oil, tiny bites of chicken.

This was the best meal she had ever eaten, but she didn't eat a lot, ever mindful of the fact that this evening had a predetermined end. Sex on a full stomach had never been something she enjoyed, and for once Bella wanted to enjoy the act.

She felt a connection with Edward, too strong to ignore, and found herself looking forward to the rest of the night, whatever it might bring.

Dessert, a light pastry with exquisite dark chocolate hidden away inside, came all too quickly and with few words spoken, dinner was over.

Bella noticed that Edward paid for his dinner in cash, and that the tip he left appeared extraordinarily large.

Ferraris, fancy restaurants, gigantic tips. A life unlike anything she had ever experienced. It was fascinating.

"What do you do for a living?" she asked as they left. Edward smiled, said nothing, and held the door open for her. Bella sat down. "Come on. I'm curious. Are you mafia or something? I won't mind." Edward laughed.

"No, not that."

"Then what?"

"Let's just say that I've had a lot of good training on how to invest, from someone who's done it for an awfully long time." Edward backed the car out. Bella mused for a moment, and then laughed.

"Will I get any straight answers from you tonight?" Edward's eyes gleamed.

"Anything's possible." Whatever response Bella might have had was swallowed by the rush of wind as the car roared into motion.

The road, again, and that same feeling of complete control emanating from Edward.

They moved west on Flatbush Avenue, crossing over the Manhattan bridge and into Chinatown.

Edward cut a haphazard course across the island, avoiding heavy traffic and eventually joining with the fast-moving, late-evening traffic on the island's western side.

They passed Trinity Cemetery, and Bella thought again about sitting at her window and looking out over the rows of gravestones, waiting for death.

Right now those moments seemed far away. They left the city and began the drive north through Westchester County along Route 87.

This was further out of New York than Bella had ever been before, and she supposed she should worry about how she would get back to Brooklyn, but found it difficult to care.

She was racing along the highway in a Ferrari, the distance between her and her unsavoury past widening at nearly a hundred miles per hour and, for the moment, everything felt right.

Edward neither spoke, nor turned on the radio, but simply drove in silence.

It seemed to Bella that he was giving her this opportunity to enjoy the car, the ride, the night.

A small idea, not unwelcome, began to grow within her mind: Bella thought that he was also allowing her the time to say goodbye.

They were cutting over west, again, now on Route 17, following it along the lower border of New York State.

Edward left the highway sometime before Binghamton and raced off on a back road, through the woods, in the dark.

The Ferrari was now the only car around, traveling fearlessly, speedometer hovering at more than double the posted fifty-five speed limit.

Bella filled with fear, energy, and a strange excitement that had something to do with the car and even more to do with its driver, lay back, eyes closed, feeling the wind rush through her hair, dragging it out behind the seat.

"Faster?" Edward questioned, and his voice was a whisper cutting through the noise of the wind, the sound of the engine.

"Yes!" Bella cried, knuckles white against the hand-hold moulded into the door.

Edward stepped on the clutch, shifted rapidly, and stomped again on the gas pedal. The Ferrari's engine roared to life, throwing Bella back in her seat.

Terrified, unable to stop laughing, she tried to watch ahead for curves, deer, other obstacles, but couldn't help peering at the speedometer, watching it rise. And rise. And rise.

The needle moved past 150 miles per hour, and Bella, still laughing, still terrified, shut her eyes.

_We're going to die, _she thought. _We're going to die and I don't care, because I'll be in a beautiful Ferrari with good food and wine inside of me, and I'll be with Edward. I'll die with him, and then it won't matter. No one will know. I'll just be the girl who died in the Ferrari. _

But they didn't die, and finally Bella felt the car losing speed. Edward was easing off the gas, bringing the car down to a normal level.

No more danger, but the joy remained. Bella wanted to kiss him. She felt warm in her belly, between her thighs, places she'd sometimes thought dead since starting to work for Mike.

Edward looked over at her, as if hearing these thoughts, and Bella gave him a radiant grin. Was he ready?

She asked him with her eyes. Told him with her eyes: It didn't matter that he had paid for her. She _wanted _it, badly.

Her clothes seemed hot and scratchy, cumbersome. Edward stopped the car at the side of the road, nothing visible for miles but trees and sky, and Bella's first, confused thought was: _But … there's no back seat? _

Then she laughed at herself. Edward was already getting out of the car. Whatever this was, the Ferrari was not a part of it.

**So guys what do you think? **

**This is my chapter… what do you think Justin will do with the next?**

**The more reviews the faster the chapters come!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Raw need**

The woods were pitch black. Bella felt smooth ground under her feet: a path. She held Edward's hand, and he led slightly, apparently unfazed by the total darkness.

She could feel wind on her face, and now it seemed as though there was a faint glow up ahead, the trees ending.

Another minute, maybe Bella and the silhouette of the surrounding forest was visible, backlit by something up ahead. Edward stepped out and to one side, turned, beckoned to her.

"Oh my God," Bella said under her breath, stunned. Before her, in sharp contrast to the urban cityscapes she'd looked at all of her life, was a massive valley, filled with trees, a small town marked only by a few illuminated windows at its centre.

They were standing hundreds of feet above this, fifteen feet from the edge of a steep cliff carved out of the Appalachian foothills by the force of passing glaciers, tens of thousands of years ago.

It was a sight unlike anything she had ever seen, and Bella took it all in with eyes wide like a child's.

She could see forever, a universe of trees, stars clearer than she could possibly have believed.

"Edward, this is beautiful," Bella whispered, looking around. She felt him shift behind her, closer, a hand on her shoulder, turning her.

His eyes looked down at her, luminescent, catching the light from the moon and holding it.

"Did you enjoy the evening?" Bella nodded.

"Oh, yes." Edward studied her a moment.

"I won't make you do anything you don't want to do." Bella pressed herself against him.

"Why don't you go ahead and start, and I'll let you know if we get to that point." Edward smiled and kissed her.

Bella wrapped her arms around him, her breath and his breath twining together as one. It was an eternity, an instant, and seemingly over before it began.

She took a deep breath, let out a shuddery sigh, head against his chest. They stood like that for a moment, and Bella reflected that of all the possible directions this night could have taken, this might well have been the least expected, the most unlikely. And then his fingers, gently under her chin, raising her lips to his again.

They lay together in the soft grass, clothes in a jumble to their sides, forgotten, and his lips at her mouth, her throat, and her breasts.

Bella felt on fire, out of breath, flashes of heat and cold, goose bumps running in rippling waves down her arms, legs, back.

Edward caressed, teased, her body registering the contact of his fingers, the touch too gentle to satisfy.

She twisted her fingers into his hair, bringing his head forward, wanting once again to share breath with him, to be connected.

Hard, against her, and Bella soft, ready, wanting. Open thighs, arched back. Edward entered her and for a time her past ceased to exist.

She was brand new, every nerve ending electrified, feeling everything for the first time. Bella couldn't have explained what had brought her to this state, nor did she care. She was content to live in the moment.

They found rhythm, moved against each other, soft on hard, delicious friction. Bella gasped, strained, and clutched her fingers into the skin of his back. It had never been like this, building to this pleasure so quickly.

As they neared the height of their passion, Edward bent his head as if to whisper into her ear, but instead, as Bella took a deep, gasping breath, he drove the sharp points of his eye teeth into the soft flesh of her neck.

The pain was immediate, exquisite, the sensation so overwhelming that it seemed if anything to enhance the eroticism of the moment.

Pleasure and pain indistinguishable. Bella's gasp locked in her throat – she was unable to breathe, unable to scream, unable to move.

Edward fastened himself to her, powerful arms holding her in an embrace that Bella could not have broken, even if she could have moved.

As the draining sensation began, as the pain receded, as the world began to fall into black, she realized that her passion had reached its apex.

Her body clenched over and over again, in time with her heartbeat, in time with her hips, which still moved against his.

The pleasure coursing now through Bella's body was above and beyond anything she had ever before experienced.

Her arms tightened momentarily around Edward, and then fell away, her breath let loose in a soft sigh, muscles relaxing.

Death, desire, acceptance.

And then, darkness.

_Sorry for the short chapter… the next one will be longer!_

_This was Justin's chapter; the next one will be mine! _

_Read and review please! _

_Chanitnique._


	5. Chapter 5

**chapter 5**

**Somewhere dark, Smewhere wet.**

Bella woke to the sound of water.

Droplets formed; it seemed she could hear them expanding, growing to monstrous size before gravity inevitably trapped them in its hold, pulling them to the earth.

Every tiny splash an explosion, a single drop becoming many, many becoming infinite. It was as if she could hear the impact of every molecule, and for a brief moment she believed her mind might split, trying to deal with the sound.

And Then: just darkness. Just water dripping. Just her ragged breathing, the feel of cold, damp stone under her cheek. She could smell wetness and rot in the air mold from the stones, and the dim scent of sex still on her body.

She was naked, cold, disoriented. Confusion gave way to fright, fright to panic, and Bella scrambled into a sitting position, gasping.

Dim, not dark. A candle guttered somewhere to her left. She could make out the area around her in vague outlines.

As her eyes adjusted, she saw her clothes in a jumble on the floor to her right.

This was something to think about, something to take her mind off of the questions, the fear.

She crawled to the clothes, picked them up.

Panties, jeans, shirt. Feeling more human, more herself, Bella set about trying to remember how she might have arrived at this place.

Slowly the events of the previous night pieced themselves together in her mind.

The car, the restaurant, Edward. Driving fast, taking her somewhere, doing something … but that piece wouldn't come. In its place, everything was a dark red, filled with the noise of rushing water and the thud of some distant drum.

Brighter now, her eyes adjusting, able to make out details where before there were only silhouettes.

Bella saw a table, a chair, a simple bed off which she might have fallen during her sleep. A toilet in the corner, behind a screen.

A small sink with a mirror above. The walls in front, behind, to her right made of stone.

And to her left, iron bars from ceiling to floor, forming the fourth wall of the cell in which she was being held.

Bella stared at these bars, unable to gain control of her limbs, let alone make any pretence of moving.

Cold shudders of fear ran down her back.

_Trapped_, her mind repeated over and over, _I'm trapped_.

At last, with an effort of will greater, perhaps, than any she had ever made, she shoved these thoughts away.

Forced herself to look around. Tried to find something to occupy her mind. The mirror. The sink.

Bella stood on shaky legs, a newborn colt attempting to walk, steadying herself on the table.

She could feel tear tracks drying and tightening her face, though she could not remember crying.

She ran the faucet, splashed water on her face, and looked into the mirror. Terror.

Recoiling with a cry, tripping over the chair, crashing to the floor, the skin on her palms shredding on the cold stone.

The image in the mirror had been Bella, and not Bella.

Her eyes, brilliant green to begin with, now glowed with that odd luminescence.

Her pale skin had changed subtly; imperfections wiped away, bags under her eyes gone.

Her teeth as she grimaced were sharper, more pronounced, particularly the canines.

But worse, worse by far, and that which had truly caused her to recoil in horror, was the entirety of the reflection itself.

It was not _what _she was seeing that brought Bella to a sudden and full understanding that something was simply not right.

It was _how _she was seeing it – the details her eyes were able to pick out even in this dim light were somehow finer than anything that human eyes should be able to process.

She could see _everything _about herself, in a way that she had never seen before, and it was this evidence that something within her had been changed so substantially, in such a short time, that broke down the last remaining walls she had constructed against her rising fear.

Bella rolled back her head, let out a wail of utter horror and despair, and gave in to the panic that had been gnawing at the edges of her mind.

She called to Ben and Angela. Jessica. Edward and Mike and even to her mother and father.

No help came for Bella. No explanation, no escape. She wept, she screamed, she threw herself against the bars. It was not until she saw the tears she was crying, wiped on her hands and tinted with red, that she regained any sort of composure.

The sight was a harsh slap, stopping her in her tracks. Red tears. Bloody tears. And with that, Bella remembered it all, in minute detail.

The car, the kiss, the sex. She remembered Edward bringing her to the delicious moment before that final peak, and pressing his teeth against her neck.

Her mind replayed the event in slow motion, those teeth hard against her flesh, nanoseconds of waiting spread out forever, the moment when the body tenses, begging for release. Waiting. And then her heart had throbbed, body climaxing, vein pulsing.

Edward's teeth split her flesh asunder, and all that was left was the rushing, draining sensation, timed to the throb of her heart.

Bella let out a low, animal moan of terror and revulsion and lust as these memories flooded into her head, crowding out any concern for the present.

The recollection was horrifying, the blinding white pain remembered all too well.

Yet below, a dark fire awoke a need she could not imagine existing in this time and place.

Bella glanced at her hands. The skin had already healed cuts and scrapes from the fall just a few moments ago already turned to new, white flesh.

Intricate spider webs of veins stood out on those hands, more pronounced against the pale skin.

Bella understood now what she was, or was becoming. Her mind attempted to shove the thought aside, fill with rationality, and fill with excuses.

But what excuse could there be? What possible rational explanation existed for this?

When the hunger awoke inside of her, sometime later, she knew instinctively that no ordinary food would cure it.

In the summer of her seventeenth year, Bella and Ben had taken a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bella had never been, and it had been several years since the last time Ben had been to the galleries.

At his insistence she had gone along, not expecting to find anything of interest.

To her surprise, Bella had found herself absolutely captivated by nearly everything they had seen.

Here, laid out before her, was a visual history of the world. Her rapture with this idea came from Bella nearly conflicting angles.

On the one hand, all of this work lead up to her own creation. On the other, all of this came from beyond her, outside of her, cared not whether she ever existed, would go on existing long after her own life had ceased.

She was everything. She was insignificant. Bella had not been more profoundly impacted by anything in her life, save perhaps her decision to leave home.

Ben had finally been forced to drag her from the building, promising to return with her. She hadn't read everything on the Egyptians.

She'd missed the entire Roman wing. They took the train home in near silence; Ben astounded and deeply pleased with Bella's appreciation of the museum.

He did not ask her to explain, knowing that if she could, she most certainly would. Bella had struggled with it for some time, attempting to put her feelings into words, attempting to express to Ben how she'd felt, how delicious the merger of those Bella viewpoints had been.

Bella was neither stupid nor unlettered – a love for books had served her, in truth, far better in this area than a city school education probably could have – yet there was no word she knew, and perhaps no word at all, for how she felt.

Bella had made many trips to the museum that year, with Ben and alone, absorbing all she could see. Trips to The Museum of Modern Art followed galleries of new work in Greenwich Village, street artists in SoHo.

Never any desire to attempt to create the work herself, only to immerse herself in others' creations, to learn and experience what she could through them.

To absorb some alternate view, as meaningful and inconsequential as her own. Art had brought Bella a deep, abiding love for the complexity and magnificence of human life.

Even in utter disgrace, trapped in horror, she had still found some grim beauty in the structure of it all. As the blood tears dried on her cheeks, her preternatural eyes staring out through darkness no human could have penetrated, Bella felt truly and completely alone for the first time since Ben had first brought her to the museum.

That precious connection with the rest of humanity had been torn from her, and she had become something outside of the scope of those eons of art.

Against her will she had been made an interloper, no longer welcome in the human world. It seemed as if those ties that she had found within the art had been severed.

Sitting on the stone floor in the darkness, listening to the drip of water, Bella wondered when she might see Edward again.

Clearly, she had been put here to ensure that she would not run away in his absence. There was no reason for him to continue holding her in a cell once he returned.

She had not protested, had not attempted any type of escape. This, more than anything else, calmed her.

If Edward had intended simply to kill her, she would be dead. The altered physiology, the translucency in the mirror, the blood tears …

These things suggested some further plan, and one in which she joined him among the ranks of the undead.

He would not leave her here to rot. She would see him again. But not that night.

Bella rose from sleep in a manner entirely unfamiliar to her. Before, it had always been fuzzy, a gradual awakening.

Now, she went from the deepest blackness to instant, total comprehension. It was startling.

She sat up, looked around more from habit than from any need to clear her head.

She was still in the cell, of course. Nothing had changed. Almost nothing. Before her was a bottle of water, and a note.

Bella took it, read it, crumpled it up and threw it out through the bars.

_Bella, please accept my apologies for my absence, and for the appalling conditions of this cell. It is the only place in which I can be assured you will neither flee, nor come to any harm while I am away. I will see you later this evening. If you are thirsty, it should still be within your capacity to drink water for now. – Edward _

No apologies for the bite, though. No apologies for the lack of warning. No apologies for whatever he had done that had begun this process without her permission. No apologies for taking away her connection with humanity, for making her some sort of monster.

Bella felt a crawling, tightening sensation in her spine, followed by sharp cramp in her abdomen and the muscles behind her shoulder blades.

Her mouth felt dry, her skin hot, and a wave of panic flooded through her.

She knew this feeling, and a small part of her brain was surprised that it had taken so long to come around.

Her body had been without her drug for at least 24 hours now, and these pains she was feeling now were only a minor precursor to those on the horizon.

"Oh, God …" Bella fought against the panic, knowing it would only worsen the symptoms, and was able to push it back for the time being.

The gnawing desire still sat in the back of her brain, and her muscles ached like she had the flu, but she was not yet in the horrible pain that she knew was the next stage.

She uncapped the water, drank, and felt it run down the length of her chest. It seemed as if her senses were amplified at times, and yet this occurred without warning or pattern.

If she could control it, she had not yet learned how.

Steps above her, the opening of some heavy door, and then Edward was there. He looked paler still than he had the night before, and there were heavy bags under his eyes, but otherwise he was the same: The short dark hair and light brown eyes, the lanky body, the unnatural sense of stillness.

She thought she could see the ghost of a smile at his lips.

"Hello Bella." He stared in through the bars at her.

Bella, with a strength belying the shakiness inside her, replied,

"Nice place you've got here, Edward. _Love _The decor." Edward grinned, reached out with a key, and unlocked the door to her cell.

Iron grating on iron. Squeal of rusty hinges. He stepped backward, gestured with his hand.

"You'd probably like a shower. Some new clothes?" Bella looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"You turned me into some kind of monster, Edward."

"Did I?"

"I can see in the dark. I was crying earlier, and my tears were pink. I scraped my hands, and they healed in a couple of minutes. What the fuck did you do to me?" Bella could feel anger replacing fear, and welcomed it.

"Something for which you will one day thank me. Bella, you have to trust me."

"I don't have to do anything! You bought my time for a night, Edward, not my life."

"I've given you a gift."

"Take it back!" Bella shouted. "I didn't ask for your gift."

"You wanted to be with me, yes?" Bella was quiet. Edward continued. "You did, and not because I made you, either. No drugs, no magic. I gave you a taste of freedom, that's all. A look at what it might be like to be with me. And now you can be. Forever." A shiver ran down Bella's spine. She continued her silence, holding on to her anger. "I've given you immortality, Bella … or at least the path to it. I've given you a way to be free of your addictions, free of your life on the streets, free of that pimp selling you every night."

"If you were offering that, I wouldn't feel like there are shards of glass in my spine. I need to go, Edward. Now. I need that pimp. I need my fix. I never asked for any of this."

"You asked with your eyes. You asked with your body."

"I asked for your love. Not your … your …"

"Blood?"

"Blood! I don't want this, Edward. I don't."

"You don't know what this is." Edward gestured at her, Then at himself. "At least let me show you." Bella considered, shivering.

Was this a fair request? Was this man, so little the monster she'd seen portrayed in movies, read about in books, honestly giving her the chance to make her own decisions?

She had perhaps another 12 hours before the withdrawal became unbearable.

"If you trust me, Bella, I will show you a way to break from the world in which you are trapped. I will give you escape." Bella shook her head. She couldn't see it. Edward sighed, lifted his finger to his lips and without hesitation bit down.

Blood immediately welled, and Bella felt a sudden surge of adrenaline and terrible hunger. She took an involuntary step forward, before catching herself. Edward held his finger out. Bella took another step, stopped herself.

"I don't want it!"

"Yes you do, and not only because of your new nature. Bella, I'm sorry for this …" Edward moved suddenly, so fast that Bella could not even react to it.

Before she could even take in a breath to scream, he had grasped her, pressed his finger against her lips, and released her. Bella licked them instinctively, and the blood was like fiery liquor on her tongue, hot and sweet. Ambrosia. It left her breathless.

She sat down on the small bed, dazed.

"Jesus," she said. Edward smiled.

"No, Bella. Jesus has nothing to do with this." Bella looked up at him. The aches in her joints, the chills, the craving for the drug; all had faded far into the background. Bella or three drops of Edward's blood had pushed the symptoms of withdrawal away almost completely.

"Let me show you what can be. Will you trust me?" Bella stood, stretched, marvelling at the sudden strength in her limbs. She looked again at Edward, and saw in his eyes the same man for whom she had felt such strong feelings the previous night. Bella made her decision.

"No, Edward, I don't trust you. Not yet …" Edward looked crestfallen. He opened his mouth to protest, and Bella held up her hand, smiling slightly. "But I'll let you show me."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**When they met**

The dungeon was in the basement of what must have been a mansion. Bella had never seen rooms of this size, rooms that seemed to stretch out forever and ever.

The decor was stunning in its complexity, if not necessarily its artistry. Gorgeous, sixteenth-century paintings hung over gaudy, lacquer-glass statues of naked, sexless elves. It appeared as if anything that had – ever – grabbed the owner's fancy had been purchased and pushed into a corner.

The mansion was over-decorated, over-filled, over-furnished. Yet within minutes, Bella was absolutely spellbound.

Her eyes wanted to move everywhere at once, taking it all in. Luxury like she had never seen.

The ability to buy and buy and buy until, finally, all sense of aesthetics was lost.

Here a massive oak table, glowing as if with its own inner light from countless centuries of oiling and finishing.

There, a black velvet painting of dogs playing poker, that looks as if it might have been bought from a vendor standing outside of a gas station. It was overwhelming.

Edward guided her through each room, pointing out certain objects, but it was clear from his face, his voice, his expressions, that these possessions were not his.

It was obvious that he thought little of them, and perhaps viewed most with some level of derision.

Bella knew very little about Edward, but she sensed that if he had not been around this clutter for quite some time, he would have actively disdained it.

Indeed, Edward was hurrying her through the rooms; quickly pointing out things he thought would be of interest to her, ignoring the rest.

He was not trying to tempt her with luxury, and said as much.

"Everything in the world is yours for the taking, but that's not important. You know it's not important, I think, the same as I do. What's important is the life that can be lived. Hundreds of years, Bella, and there's still so much to see! So much to do!" Edward didn't seem like the emotional type.

Bella wondered if this was a rare outburst that she should be appreciating. She tried her best, but all the while that same nagging thought pulled at the back of her mind like the ebb and flow of the tide. Not human. Not human. No longer connected to that beautiful web of grief and love and death and striving, striving to find some meaning in what must, by definition, be an empty universe.

But there was temptation here, as well. Wasn't there a spark of excitement in her, brought on by his words?

The scope of what she had seen in that moment in the Ferrari when she had nearly lost herself in despair was minimal next to what Edward was now proposing.

Bella had never felt so torn in her life. Humanity. Immortality. The spirit. The soul.

She shut her eyes, breathed deeply, and pushed it away. She'd told Edward she would let him show her. She meant to keep her words.

They came at last to a set of oak doors that seemed too massive even for Edward to open. Solid in a way that modern creations simply weren't, they stood before her at the end of a long hallway.

Edward paused, looked momentarily pained, and turned to Bella.

"Carlisle."

It was a threat, a warning, an invitation, an explanation. The quality of Edward's voice as he spoke the word was indefinable. Bella repeated it, forming the word as a question, looking for detail.

"My father. My … he runs this household. He does not interfere with my daily life, usually, but I owe my allegiance to him. Or I did. Now …" His words trailed off, and for a moment his eyes, normally so clear and focused, were distant. Cloudy.

"Edward?"

"It's hard, now. I'm too strong. It's too soon." She didn't understand a word of it. She began to say this, and he shook his head as if in answer. "It doesn't matter. Tonight, we are sticking to basics, and it is not fundamental that you understand this right now."

"Do you all talk in riddles all of the goddamn time?" Bella was somewhat exasperated despite her desire to understand. Or perhaps because of it. Edward surprised her with a bright grin.

"You will enjoy meeting Rose," he laughed.

"Will she tell me what's going on?"

"In more detail than you could possibly want."

"What about Carlisle?"

"If you experience anything less than abject terror, I'll be amazed." Bella raised her eyebrows.

"That bad?"

"And worse. Carlisle is … eternal. He is not like others of my kind, not even like myself or Rose. He never was. You'll, well … no, you won't understand, but you'll feel it. If it gets too bad, I'll know, and I'll do my best to keep you from harm." Bella looked at the door with renewed concern.

This didn't sound like anything she had any interest in experiencing. Rose sounded fun. Carlisle sounded dark at best, deadly at worst.

Edward looked at her, smiled again, touched her cheek.

"You'll be fine. He may even like you. I don't think you're like anyone else he's met."

"Couldn't that work out just the opposite?" Bella questioned. She felt like crying, and didn't know why.

It seemed as if she could find nothing but despair inside herself, as if the duality of her human persona, light and dark, had been half-erased.

"It might." Edward's voice was curiously gently.

"I wonder the same." Bella took a deep, shuddery breath, looked down the hall, steeled herself. "Okay. Well, let's go meet Carlisle." Her voice trembled only the slightest bit.

The room was pitch black. The doors, which Edward had opened with remarkable ease, did not make a sound as they swung backward into blackness that the light from the hallway could not begin to penetrate.

They stood on the threshold like archaeologists at some newly unearthed tomb, waiting to see what might spring forth from the darkness within.

When the voice came, it was all Bella could do not to turn and run, screaming, down the hallway.

It was like rotting graves; gravel grinding at the bottom of some blackened abyss; the howl of wind through a cemetery in October.

Age beyond age, depth beyond depth, darkness beyond darkness.

"You visit me, my son. You bring something? A treat? A taste for Carlisle? So long since you last brought me some lovely treat."

"Hello, father." Edward's voice was low, subdued, respectful. Bella could not detect fear, there, at least nothing akin to the terror currently sitting unsteady in her belly.

The thing in the room chuckled; a low grating sound that sent squirms of revulsion up Bella's spine. She fought them off, gripped Edward's hand instinctively.

"But so bravely she stands!" the creature said. "It should please you, my dear. Others have been unable to stand even long enough to hear my voice. Such bravery, yet such fear. Do the legs tremble, my dear? Does the heart beat and beat? Does the blood run thin?" This struck the creature as uproariously funny, and he howled out at them from the darkness.

Bella felt what little grip she retained on her composure slipping rapidly away. Edward sensed this, spoke up, cut off the laughter.

"This is the one of which I spoke, Carlisle. This is Bella." A momentary pause. Bella felt herself being considered by the thing, the sensation like worms crawling sluggishly across her skin.

"She is still young," Carlisle said at last.

"Yes."

"_You _are still young!" he roared suddenly at Edward, and Bella was unable to keep from cringing, making some small cry.

Her face paled, then reddened with embarrassment. Edward appeared not to notice. He stared into the darkness. Nodded.

"You knew, when you made me, what I was to be," he said after a moment. A sigh, like the shuffle of old papers.

"Light a candle, my son," Carlisle said. "I would see you as a mortal does."

"No mortal sees like we do, father," Edward replied, but he produced a match from a pocket, struck it against the granite table directly to the right of the door, lit the wick of the massive candle that stood atop it.

The room seemed to swallow this light and then, perhaps finding it unpleasant to the taste, grudgingly released it. A gleam at the far corner. Eyes.

"Handsome, handsome boy," said Carlisle, and Bella could barely perceive a slight shaking of the head. "Why do you insist on looking such? Why cut your beautiful hair? Why dress in these ridiculous clothes?"

"_Those who do not change wither. Those who do not change die,_" Edward recited.

"Speak not such things to me!" Carlisle leapt forward suddenly, slightly further into the light, leaning over his massive wooden desk, white-knuckled grip on the far edge, powerful shoulders supporting his torso as he stared in fury at Edward.

Bella shrank back, managing to hold in her cry this time. The light helped. Edward's apparent fearlessness in the face of a being multitudes more powerful than himself helped more.

"Speak not in such a manner, from the scrolls of Eresh, to him who has given you _everything_!"

"Everything and nothing, father. Ashes and dust. Life in death."

"Impertinence in youth," Carlisle grumbled. He sat back down, and Bella found that she could barely recall his image, as if her mind had blotted it out. She remembered a heavy head of hair, complemented by large eyebrows and a beard. Had he been young? Old? She couldn't tell. Only that he was huge. Taller and broader than Edward, thick through the shoulders, muscular.

A dangerous man even as a human let alone what he had become.

"I speak only what you have taught, father," Edward said. He took a step forward into the room, gently pulling Bella with him. Carlisle chuckled. The sound was bitter, cynical. There was no humour in it.

"Ahh. '_My first thought was, he lied in every word_.' It does not suit you, Edward."

"I am no liar, father. No cripple."

"Oh, yes? Well. No cripple, anyway, as well you prove out there, traipsing about in the mortal world, driving your fast cars, lying with your women in patches of grass." He looked at Bella with a raised eyebrow. Bella made an effort to return the gaze, succeeded. The vampire laughed again. "So brave," his voice was quiet, contemplative. "Why is she not finished?" Edward paused a moment and Bella sensed that the next few moments were critical.

"Her previous … employer. He forced things upon her against her will. Many things, one of which was a drug."

"She is impure?"

"The change will cleanse her."

"And what drug is this?"

"Heroin, father. Do you know it?"

"Opium, yes?"

"Processed chemically, but yes."

"She is unclean."

"She is pure in heart, father. She is pure in soul. The blood will strip her of mortal needs, mortal addictions, mortal weaknesses."

"So sure?" There was dark humour in the old vampire's voice. Edward said nothing. "No, you are not sure. Not sure at all, my impetuous fledgling. Yet you do not answer my question. Why is she not finished?"

"I did not know we were susceptible to such things. The drug is still too recent in her veins. It … It made me quite ill." The elder vampire screamed laughter at this, rocking back in his chair.

Bella wanted to cover her ears with her hands. The sound went on and on, madness and hate and anger disguised as humour, as anything so remotely human. And then, abruptly, stopped.

"Oh, my. 'Quite ill' indeed, I've no doubt. That drug, Edward, more than any other, is poison to our kind. It would likely have killed a lesser creation. You are _Eresh-Chen_, though. You seem to have recovered." Edward nodded.

Carlisle turned his attention to Bella, caught her in his eyes.

"Come to me, my dear." Bella felt her feet moving, almost against her own will. She heard Edward draw in a breath, but he said nothing.

Bella understood now that Edward felt no fear for himself, held no question of his own safety, but that he feared for hers very greatly.

The final moment of the interview had come, judgment was to be handed down, and what Carlisle might deem proper was as unfathomable as his deep, black eyes.

Bella stood next to him at the chair, terrified, gasping for breath but unable to move away. Unable to look away.

Carlisle reached out, touched his finger to her forehead. The contact brought with it a jolt like electricity.

Bella gasped nipples instantly hard, warmth between her legs once more awake and throbbing.

"You enjoy?" The vampire laughed at her. Bella felt dizzy. She was hyperventilating. "A taste, Edward, of this tainted blood?" he questioned, and his voice mocked Edward, mocked them both.

She was his for the taking, all three knew it, but he found the formality deliciously, darkly entertaining.

"If you must, father." Edward's voice was strained. Carlisle seemed to smile at this, as if he approved of both the acceptance and the clear hatred in the voice of his creation.

"You will understand in time, my son, when this day comes for you, when she takes another and breaks your heart."

"Get it over with," Edward said, and Carlisle grinned broadly.

He touched his finger lightly to Bella's shoulder, and her knees buckled. She fell to the floor, looking up, enraptured, terrified.

His fingers now under her chin, like those of a lover, rising, exposing the pale neck below.

Bella gasped, panted, black spots appearing before her eyes. She was dimly aware that she was weeping, and the warmth below her waist had become a roaring blaze.

Closing her eyes, she pictured Edward and thought, _Let it be him, and not this monster. _

The vampire leaned his head down, settled the points of his teeth against her neck, waited. Just as before, the moment stretched out into eternity.

The world became surreal, painted in shades of grey and yet more vibrant than anything Bella had ever witnessed.

She felt a tear grow on a single eyelash, fatten, drop. It hit her face, warmth of her body fading quickly as it cooled, leaving a track down her cheek. Her heart throbbed.

The vampire tore through the flesh of her neck in an instant, seeking the blood forced through her veins by that thudding organ.

Pain again, like glass, exquisite, blinding, maddening, and a spike of sheer ecstasy running through her like before, like with Edward, this caused only be Carlisle's touch, Carlisle's teeth.

Such power. Bella leaned her head back, wailing in terror, in pleasure, in fear.

It was death, it was birth, it was the coalescence of the entire universe in a single moment. And then it was gone.

The vampire pulled back, Bella fell to the floor, gasping, weeping. Her eyes fluttered open and shut, trying to make sense of the myriad images before her.

Edward, looking away, unable to watch what was transpiring before him. Carlisle, eyes closed, head tilted back, enjoying her blood like a man tasting fine wine.

The flickering candle on the table cast light on the door, and now it seemed the flame itself was a door as well, light from inside spilling out, like a hole in the fabric of reality. Bella wept at its beauty.

"It makes me lightheaded," Carlisle said. "The blood is tainted indeed, and yet so strong. So delightful, ah, she will be a good daughter for you. Daughter, sister, lover … whatever you choose to make of her. It will be many years before she finds the strength to leave you."

"It … may be many years before she … finds the strength to stand up." Bella heard herself as if from down a long hall, and was aghast at her own blasphemy.

To speak, and so impertinently, in front of this creature who had given her such pain, such pleasure. Surely now he would strike her down.

But Carlisle only roared his horrible, mocking laughter, clapping his hands together.

Edward snarled something, moved towards her, and Bella understood in that instant the hatred burning between master and pupil, father and son. Was it like this for all of them? Would it be like this for her? No, Bella realized. Not for her and Edward. There was no hatred there.

"Or perhaps I am wrong!" Carlisle cackled. "Perhaps I am very wrong indeed!"

And then Edward had her in his arms, and she was resting her head against his chest, neck throbbing, wanting only to sleep.

She tried to speak, tried to tell him that she did not feel defiled, that even as pleasure and pain had torn through her body, she had thought of Edward, and it had been clean.

She could not say so much, her eyelids so heavy; sleep forcing itself upon her with clumsy, brutal hands. She forced herself awake, took her hand, held it to her neck.

Fingers bloody, Edward striding rapidly down the hall, not running, only leaving, his fear lost in his anger.

The oak doors shut behind them and Bella wondered if Carlisle had moved from his desk or closed them with only a thought.

She pressed her bloody fingers to Edward's lips, and he stopped, looked down at her in surprise.

"Not like that." Bella's voice was a whisper, and she was crying again. "Not like he says."

An expression of powerful emotion passed over Edward's usually unreadable face. He made a sound, smiled at her, kissed her fingers. Bloody white lips, bloody white teeth.

Bella slept.

**Hi guys,,,**

**This was Justin's chapter…**

**Did you enjoy it? Please leave a review!**

**Chantinique ;)**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**Us**

The bed held softness unlike anything she had ever experienced. Or perhaps it was her skin, newly remade, that made it feel that way.

Silk sheets and pillow covers, heavy down blankets enveloping her, warming her, giving her a sense of comfort she had never before experienced.

Waking was as it had been before, instantaneous, frightening almost in the sudden intensity of consciousness. One moment, blackness; the next, total lucidity.

Bella woke with Edward's name on her lips, a soft whisper, and she smiled against the silk.

Had there been dreams? Visions of her life as an immortal? Had she dreamt of who she might be, what she might do?

Bella's heart raced as her mind pondered these things. There was time, now. Time enough to see all of the art that ever she could desire.

Who cared if she was no longer a part of the web of humanity that produced it?

Could one not stand outside a house and still admire the decor within? Was it not possible to appreciate certain strains of music that the ear could not, in truth, even process into a coherent whole?

_I'm falling in love with him, _she thought, _and in love with what he is. _

Though she sensed the tragedy in this thought, as if some instinctive part of her warned against so seemingly easy an answer, she could not deny the truth of it.

Carlisle be damned; Edward was not like him, never would be. She was sure of this.

She'd seen Edward's face as she pressed her blood to his mouth. Not greed or hate, not even hunger, but only overwhelming desire.

Love? Or at least the beginnings of it, as she was now feeling herself? Bella thought so, yes, and that was enough.

The click of a latch. Bella felt no fear. Not Carlisle, then. Edward, of course.

She turned, sitting up before he could speak. She didn't want him to speak. Not now.

Catching him in her bright caramel eyes, now luminescent from the vampire blood in her veins, trying to hold him there. An interminable moment, but sweet, as they looked into each other's eyes.

Edward's face held that same gentle smile with which he seemed always to look upon her.

_You are all I have wanted_, his eyes told her, _since the first time I beheld you. _

Bella felt this echo in her own soul, and she broke out into a grin. She let the sheets pool in her lap.

Bare skin, bare breasts, not embarrassed. She laughed as his eyes flicked down momentarily, and back again to her face.

It did not anger her, this look. It brought her only the joy that comes with being desired.

"Lovely," he said through his smile, and she knew he meant not only her breasts, but everything else.

Filled with warmth, she closed her eyes, lay back, enjoyed the feeling of silk on skin.

Edward sat next to her in a large wooden chair with a padded cloth back, as relaxed as ever she had seen him, and yet so still. So composed.

She wondered aloud if it was the effect of immortality. He smiled, shook his head.

"No."

"Just you?"

"Just me." She looked up at him from the bed; let her eyes tell him that if the chair was uncomfortable, other arrangements could be made. Edward laughed out loud.

"Oh, if only I could, Bella. But I haven't the time that I'd like to spend." Bella frowned in disappointment, but accepted this without comment. They had forever, perhaps. "Perhaps?"

"Are you reading my mind?" She questioned, a mischievous grin surfacing, pretending to be offended. "Is that another crazy thing you can do?" Edward smiled.

"Your mind is a fascinating place. I find it hard to draw away."

"Where are you going? Why can't you stay with me?" She had meant it as another playful question; the spurned, jealous lover.

Another game, nothing more, but she saw a momentary flick of something on Edward's face. Frustration? Anger? He sighed, examined his fingernails.

"Carlisle requires my services. I would must do ask he asks, particularly now."

"Why?" Edward looked up at her, the expression of one in love stamped clearly on his face, eyes locked again with hers.

"He didn't kill you."

"Did you think he would?"

"I did not know." Edward looked away from her, ran a hand through his hair. It seemed that this admission, more than any other, hurt him.

Bella tried to understand the reason for his pain. She reached out, touched his hand, drew it between her breasts, held it against her heart. "I did not know. Bella. I have not feared anything, at all, in centuries. Not even Carlisle. Nothing alive, nothing undead. Not until we approached his chamber. And to see you in his arms? Under his spell? Terror. Terror."

"He couldn't hurt me, in the end, you know. That's what he wanted, and I

didn't give it to him. I wasn't thinking of _him _at all."

"No?"

"No." She sat up, leaned forward, kissed his lips. "I was thinking about someone else." Edward touched her cheek, touched her hair, held her head in his hands, kissed the skin of her forehead.

"That comforts me," he said at last, "and you make me regret heeding Carlisle's summons this night. There is much else I would rather be doing."

Bella smiled at this. It echoed her own thoughts.

"Go, then. Do what he wants and come back soon."

"So quick to dismiss me?" It was Edward's turn, mock hurt in his voice, a grin on his lips.

"I'm afraid if I don't, I'm going to jump you whether you like it or not." Edward laughed, deep and rich, and stood up to go. But Bella called him back.

One last kiss, long and deep this time, and during, Bella bit deep into her own lip, felt the blood seep from the wound, shared it with him.

The taste of it was like fire, like nectar, like life and death and dreams. And oh, how those mental ties to humanity seemed like candles in a strong wind, blinking out of existence, one after the other.

Pain lanced through Bella's midsection, stomach knotting, muscles cramping. She sat up, doubled over, gasped.

In the depths of her body, a need that had nothing to do with blood, nothing to do with her new nature, reawakened.

Heroin, the pain cried out to her, and Bella felt tears standing out against her eyes, thought these themselves felt dry and burned.

No. This was over. This was her past. She had left this behind. Another spasm. Another cramp.

Bella cried out, arms wrapped around her stomach, Carlisle's words coming back to her.

"_She is unclean._"

Edward's protest, that the change, her rebirth into immortality, would cleanse this need from her. Carlisle's deceptive chuckle.

Suppose it didn't? Suppose now she would be trapped in this addiction for the duration of her immortal life?

Bella thought that if this were the case, such a life would end more quickly than expected. And so it went.

Bella could not remember when Edward had left her, could not remember how long it had been, had no conception of time. She cursed herself for not remembering to ask for his blood.

She cursed Mike for ever giving her the drug. She cursed God for putting her on this earth. Pain and thirst ravaged her.

At times it seemed she burned, at others chills wracked her body like physical blows. She did not call for Edward, though she wanted to. She was afraid only the thing she had met last night would answer.

Just as it seemed she could take it no longer, that she would leap from her bed, dress, return to the city, return to Mike, return to it all in exchange for the syringe which would numb this pain, she felt a presence in the room with her.

Her fear gave her a momentary respite from the pain, but this was not the abject terror that she had experienced in Carlisle's presence, nor the quiet awe that Edward inspired. It was something in between.

"Who?" She asked the darkness at the end of the room.

"Rose," said a voice from the shadows. Bella could make out a pair of gleaming eyes observing her.

She tried to think of an adequate greeting. Words failed her.

_Hi, I'm Bella. I need some heroin. _

It was almost enough to make her laugh out loud. Rose came forward into the light.

She was a study in contrast. Her hair was silver blonde, long and straight. Her deep blue eyes had not been lightened by vampirism, only intensified into deep black pools. Her skin was white porcelain, her lips a deep, sensual red. She was beautiful, taller than Bella and well built, wearing a pair of black jeans and a cream-colored blouse. She appeared concerned.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you look terrible," she said, sitting in the same chair that Edward had previously occupied.

"I'm not … doing too good," Bella admitted.

"Sick?"

"Withdrawal." Bella felt a slight flush of shame at this admission, but what did it matter now?

"Withdra—Oh!" Rose's eyes grew large as she realized what Bella meant. She pushed her hair back behind her shoulders unconsciously, bending over Bella, seeming equally curious and worried.

"Edward?" Bella asked, trying not to let her voice sound as weak as she felt.

"I don't know. I'm sorry. I wish I did. I'd get him." Bella sobbed once, got control of herself, looked again at Rose.

"Can I have my clothes?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure." Rose handed them to Bella, who pulled them on underneath the covers.

"Sorry," Bella said. She fought against the pain, sat up, forehead rested against her palms, elbows against her knees.

"It's okay. I guess it's weird, having some chick you've never met staring at you while you're all sick and naked and everything." Bella laughed a little, wiped tears from her eyes. "What kind of drug?" Rose asked. There was a faint accent to her voice. Bella couldn't place it. Bella did not look up.

"Can't you read it? It's sort of been on my mind."

"I'm not like Edward. I mean, I might be someday, but not now. His powers are way beyond mine. I just pick up things once in a while."

"Heroin."

"Oh, ouch. That's not good. I mean … you know. Pot, E, maybe even a little coke, sure. But Heroin's bad shit." Bella shuddered, looked up at Rose, eyes watery.

"No kidding." Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

"Hey, hey … sorry," Rose said, that expression of concern coming to her features again.

"I'm not trying to be rude. Seriously. I'm a little scatterbrained right now myself. Always like this when I oversleep, and the girl last night had _so much _wine in her." Bella raised her eyebrows, confused. Rose rolled her eyes.

"And now I'm rambling. I can't control it. I'm sorry. Can I do anything to help you?" Edward was right; Bella did like Rose.

She was the polar opposite of the calm, collected vampire who'd brought Bella to this world, but Bella liked her just the same.

She smiled, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "Unless you've got a fix in that purse, I don't know if there's much you can do." Rose shook her head, her expression almost sad, as if it was indeed a travesty that she was not carrying the drug.

"No. Just some makeup and Kleenex and," she looked around as if confirming that no one was listening, "maybe some weed." Bella laughed, wincing at the pain this brought.

A vampire carrying ganja. Wonders never ceased. Rose grinned as well, maybe seeing the humor, maybe just happy to see Bella smile.

"You can smoke that?" Bella asked.

"Sure."

"And it's, like, the same as for a human?"

"Beats me. It does something, though. Everything does. What we find palatable, though, may differ a lot from humans. I think heroin would probably be too much for me."

"When Edward, uh … started me, he said that it made him really sick, just getting it from my blood."

"Edward's a wuss!" Rose laughed. "I mean, I'm sure it hid … and if it was that bad for him I'm sure it'd be awful for me, too. But he's also pretty picky. He doesn't even like it when there's a little alcohol in the mix. Just all that serious 'no, only blood, nothing else' stuff."

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Does it matter?"

"How old are you, Rose? How old is Edward?"

"Ooh, hmmm," she mused, "I don't know. He might want to tell you that himself."

"What about you, then?"

"One hundred and forty eight … and three days. Or twenty-two, depending on how you look at it."

"You don't look a day over one-twenty." Rose laughed, and then looked again in concern as Bella doubled over. Hot and cold flashes were running through her, and she was bathed in a cold sweat.

"Oh, fuck. I think I'm going to puke."

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do?"

"Edward's blood stops it. I don't know. Would yours?" Bella spoke slowly, through clenched teeth, trying to fight against the sudden onset of nausea. Rose shrugged.

"Beats me. Worth a shot. I don't mind. I probably shouldn't let you just go at my neck or whatever, though."

"Edward bit his finger."

"Sure." Rose's teeth made a tiny clicking sound, like the noise of a stapler, and she held her finger out to Bella, blood welling up from Bella tears in the skin. "Hurry up, before it heals." Bella looked up at her.

"Sorry. This is some fucked up, bizarre shit."

"Live a hundred and fifty years, and you'll see things that make this seem pretty tame. Do it, if you think it'll help you. I don't mind." Bella put her lips on Rose's finger and let the blood roll on to her tongue.

The effect of the blood was immediate, energizing her, and it was all she could do not to clamp down with her teeth. Rose seemed to sense this, and grinned.

"Yummy. Vampire blood is awesome. Hard to get, though." Bella swallowed twice, forced herself to pull away. Her nausea disappeared, along with the cold sweat and the chills.

Some of the pain remained, still, but it was distant.

"Better?" Rose asked, and Bella nodded.

"Yes. Not perfect, but much better Thank you." Rose licked the last few drops of her blood off her fingers and smiled.

"No problem. What's your name?"

"Bella."

"Italian for beautiful?"

"yes" Rose laughed and clapped her hands.

"That's so cool! That's much better than Jennifer or Betty or Rose." Bella shrugged.

"I guess?"

"People with cool names never appreciate them. Now then. What you need is a bath. That'll take your mind off of this withdrawal stuff until Edward gets back, and then I'm sure he'll know what to do." Bella crossed her arms, scratched her shoulders.

A bath sounded wonderful.

"You can use mine. The one in here sucks. Edward doesn't know anything." Rose helped her up. Bella stood on shaky legs, looked around, took a breath.

"How far is it?"

"Not far. Can you walk a bit?" Bella nodded. Rose went to the door, opened it, held it for her.

In the hallway, the vampire took the lead, and Bella followed.

_Leave your love!_

_Chantinique_

_Review!_

_Please!_


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The bath was heaven on earth. Giant marble slabs, green and black and grey patterns tracing themselves out across what seemed, at first, to be miles of stone. The basin had to be twelve feet long, three feet deep.

Sitting straight up, Bella saw, the water could easily have covered her head. The faucet was enormous.

The water steamed as Rose turned it on.

"I like flowers. Do you like flowers?" Bella had no idea what Rose meant. She shrugged.

"Sure?"

"In the bath, silly."

"Oh." Bella honestly didn't know. She'd never tried it. "Why not?" Rose laughed, took a basket from the shelf above, dropped hundreds upon hundreds of blossoms into the bath water.

Their fragrance filled the room immediately, cherry blossoms, rose petals, the sweet smell of citrus.

Rose lit candles, turned off the lights, stood in front of Bella, unbuttoned her blouse. Bella shrugged it off.

Rose's blood seemed to have imbued her with a sense of great calm, and Bella found herself unconcerned about being naked in front of the vampire girl.

Rose, for her part, seemed entirely unfazed. She helped Bella out of the rest of her garments, held her arm out for balance as Bella climbed the steps to the bath and stepped in.

Bella descended into the petals, felt the warmth embrace her, and sighed. Rose sat on the step, played with the water at her fingertips, smiled at Bella.

"Good?"

"Oh, yes." Rose handed her a gigantic sponge, craggy and twisted and obviously natural, and some sort of perfumed bath lotion.

Bella cleaned herself slowly. Rose chattered, behind her and to the right, about all sorts of things.

New pop music she was enamoured with, the wonderful lights and throbbing beats of the raves she attended, the new interpretation of Shakespeare running on Broadway.

Her tastes were more varied than anyone Bella had met. She kept the conversation casual.

Eventually, Bella was as clean as she was going to get. She lingered, relaxed, the withdrawal back in some dark corner, brooding, not yet ready to return.

Rose ran water, filled a clay jug, ancient glaze cracked along its contours, and wet Bella's hair.

Bella leaned back, eyes closed, as Rose's fingers worked shampoo through her brown curls.

It was like a supernatural visit to a salon, Bella reflected, and laughed slightly. Rose seemed to catch this thought, and smiled as well.

She helped Bella from the bath, dried her, helped her choose perfumes Edward might like, helped her dress in a long, flowing gown. Green, like his eyes. It was a bit too long, but otherwise fit well.

"He'll say he prefers black, if you ask him, but he's just buying into the whole vampire thing. You look like a goddess, and he'll know it." Bella looked at herself in the mirror, amazed at the change.

White skin, green dress, brown eyes, chocolate hair. The gown was of an older style, _décolleté_, leaving little to the imagination, pushing her breasts upward and making them seem fuller.

She looked like a lady at court. Bella smiled, giggled like a little girl, touched her own hair as if not believing.

In her nineteen years, she had never seen herself like this. Bella had always understood that she possessed some level of beauty, and knew also that the vampirism was enhancing this even more, but still would never have believed she could look like this.

Behind her stood Rose, still in her simple jeans and blouse and yet radiating supernatural beauty as well.

Smiling, she touched Bella's neck, and Bella turned. A small, sweet kiss on the lips, and Rose peered into her eyes, beaming.

"Soon we'll be sisters! Or nearly enough. You and Edward will be together, and we can all hunt and live and see and do! Won't it be wonderful?" Bella thought it might, indeed.

"I don't care for all of this antique crap." Rose's directness, something Bella realized now was as innate to her as Edward's composure was to him, was sometimes surprising. Bella raised her eyebrows.

"No?" They were sitting on the back terrace, looking out at the woods.

The moon was huge tonight, reaching the bloated, red fullness she had seen promised not three nights ago.

It hung low over the sky. The night was still young. Bella's earlier pain had made the time seem much longer than it had actually been.

"No. It's pointless. Carlisle buys the stuff without any thought, at least that I can tell. Mostly he doesn't even do the buying. Edward does, though Edward _detests _a lot of it. That might be what Carlisle has him doing tonight. Or it might be that he's retrieving dinner for Carlisle. He doesn't hunt for himself anymore, you know, just relies on Edward. Doesn't even have to drink more than every once in a while. I think maybe the little blood he took from you, like you said? That might have woken up the thirst."

"How does Edward feel about bringing him victims?"

"Better than about buying him stupid furniture." Rose's eyes gleamed. She grinned.

"It doesn't bother him, then? Picking out a life to take like he was going to the grocery store?" Rose looked at Bella, shook her head, smiling.

"That's not how it is … not for Edward or even for me. We don't have to kill, anymore. We don't need that much blood. Carlisle kills because he likes to, that's all.

"But even if we still had to … you don't understand. You were asleep for the only real drink you've ever had. You don't know how it is yet. You think a couple of drops from a finger are good? Wait until you're a full vampire." Bella remembered the taste of Rose's blood, of Edward's, of her own. It had been sweet on her lips, hot and powerful. It had left her breathless.

"You have to kill at the start. You won't be able to stop yourself, but you get over it," Rose continued. "Mortals die all the time. That's what makes them so beautiful. They get all into their art and their music and their careers and everything, and then they get old and die.

"Or they die young. If we don't bring them death, something else will, some other time. We are predators among them. And most of them? In that last instant before death? Most of them love us." Bella shook her head, not in disagreement but confusion.

It all seemed deceptively easy. It all seemed so right, and yet here she was sitting with a young woman talking casually about the slaughter of human beings.

"You're only half. When he makes you full, Bella, these things won't concern you. Or at least, I doubt they will. Not past the first kill."

"You said we'd be sisters. Did Edward make you, then?" Rose laughed, not at Bella's ignorance, but at the idea itself, as if the very thought were absurd.

"No, my father is Carlisle. My blood is Carlisle's blood. I only meant sisters in that our bodies are of similar ages. And both of us will have been reborn into darkness, as the poets put it."

Darkness. Bella could feel darkness at the back of her mind, beginning to gnaw at her again.

The idea of a fix right now, after the nice warm bath, out on the patio with a friend, seemed dangerously appealing.

Rose cocked her head.

"You're thinking about drugs." Bella felt her face reddening, nodded.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"It's okay. I imagine it's hard not to. I wonder if it's like the thirst. If it's like when we're forced not to drink for a few days. It burns in us, Bella. It's all I can think about. Sometimes it's like that even on normal days. Sometimes I'll feed two … even three times a night."

Bella didn't know. Of the thirst she knew only a vague desire, not a desperate need. Of the heroin, she knew nothing else.

Time passed. Several times Bella was one the verge of asking Rose for more blood, but stopped herself.

She didn't want to seem that weak. She could handle it until Edward returned. Light shakes and a dry mouth.

No worse than getting the flu, really, for the moment. In the distance, in the trees, a howling.

Bella looked up, eyes widening. Rose's reaction was immediate. She stood and peered out into the forest.

"Oh, shit. I have to go, Bella." Bella felt fear flood through her, fear of being alone, of the pain returning. Bella turned to Rose with pleading eyes.

"Why? What is it?"

"I have to. And you have to go back inside." Apology implicit in her voice, but Rose offered no explanation.

Bella looked at her, mute. She wanted to ask for more blood, if Rose was going to leave her alone, but the vampire seemed agitated and nervous.

"I'll take you back up to your bedroom, if you want. Then I have to go." Bella nodded, biting her lower lip, trying to suppress the fear and depression that wanted to engulf her.

Lying in the dark. Hard to breathe, hard to think, conscious thought slipping in and out like the tide.

Sometimes there was only pain, sometimes she could hear herself sobbing. Chills, nausea, and the maddening craving for the drug. God, all she wanted was to get high.

Was it so wrong? Thoughts of Mike, Jessica, the drug, the needle. Bella wanted to leave this mansion, return to her pimp, beg for his apology and for her ration. But she couldn't walk.

She knew that soon she would try to crawl, crawl back to New York, back to Mike, on her hands and knees.

She had no choice. More howling from the outside, and then quiet. Just the wind, the rustling of leaves, the sound of grass shivering under its assault.

Bella's eyes were wide open in the dark, not seeing the room around her. Instead she saw the forest. She heard light, quiet breathing. Gasps from further away.

Was this her body? Dark brown hair at the sides of her vision, hanging in long, loose curls like hers. Yet her chest felt heavier, the breasts larger, the body lankier.

She moved across the ground in a manner completely unfamiliar to her. This was not Bella.

The pain cut through the vision. Bella gasped, moaned, lay back, and again the seeing overtook her.

No, not Bella. Not her eyes. Not her body. Someone else. Some other.

Ahead, a silhouette, something struggling its way through the forest. Something that Bella could barely see was moving in lumbering steps, gasping, weeping, praying in some nameless language to some nameless god.

The prayer of the victim. The prayer of the hunted. Bella's heart raced, adrenaline flooding her body, excitement and lust and terrible, terrible hunger.

The prey was at hand, the hunt over. Speed, now, overtaking the victim, warmth flooding through her body as dull excitement awakened between her thighs.

Was it always like this? Would she never grow used to this, never lose that throbbing heat?

She tasted the man's sweat, salty, as her teeth and tongue caressed the surface of his neck.

He lay there, caught by her powerful arms, unable to move, unable to breathe.

The attack was not a clean bite, not the civilized piercing Edward's teeth had made in her own vein, barely noticeable afterward.

Bella felt her head move forward, felt her jaws clench like powerful machines, felt bone and muscle and cartilage crush between her teeth.

A tearing sound, like wet cloth, resistance giving way as she jerked and twisted her head.

Bella screamed out loud at this sensation, in her bedroom in the mansion.

The blood sprayed, coating her face in warmth. Below her, the man was jerking, seizing, pain and pleasure overtaking him even as his death throes began.

Great draughts of blood, they seemed to never end, pumping and pumping from his ruined throat.

Bella closed her eyes, driving this vision away, descending into pain. The pain was better than this. The pain would help her forget, help her erase this memory of brutal, violent death.

Yet these things did not happen. Bella could not forget, and in the depths of pain she found she could admit to herself the truth, somehow more bearable amidst the cramps and chills ravaging her body.

Hadn't she wanted it? To rip, to tear, to feed? Had her body not peaked as those awful teeth began their assault, as it had with Edward? As it had with Carlisle? Had it not reacted to this horror with pulsing ecstasy, calling for more, calling for the blood?

Had she not loved it?

_Sooooo?_

_Please please please review!_

_Thanks!_

_Chantinique _


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**Lover's kisses **

Bella was sitting up in her bed, pressing against the wall, knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them, shuddering.

It took several seconds for the sound of the door opening to register with her. She looked up.

Edward, standing before her, concern and love and sorrow on his face, watching her with his unearthly composure.

Bella put her head down on her arms and began to sob. He was holding her, powerful arms, gentle touch.

He lay next to her on the bed, and she wept into his chest. He whispered into her ear, calming, soothing, and his fingers touched her lips, and Bella tasted blood there. She licked it greedily.

"I am sorry, Bella. It was foolish of me to leave without giving you this. It is my fault. I'll not leave you again now. We will be together until this is done, and then forever."

The pain receded. Gone, not forever, but for the moment, and for the moment that was enough.

Bella twisted in Edward's arms, sobbing, crushed her body against his, kissed his neck, kissed his lips. Edward kissed her tears from her face.

"I am so sorry, Bella. I would never have left you if I'd know it would get that bad, that fast." She shook her head.

She didn't care. She didn't blame him. He was here, now, and the rest was unimportant.

"Has it been this way since I left?"

"No." A whisper. It was all she could manage.

Edward sat up, seemed to notice her clothes for the first time. Bella smiled sadly as he looked her over, shrugged her shoulders, looked at him in apology.

"It looked a lot better … before."

"You look radiant. How strong you must be, to look so, and in such pain." Bella lowered her eyes. Was this strength?

Edward ran his hand through her hair, seemed awed by its softness.

"Rose helped me." Edward nodded, as if expecting this.

"I thought she might show herself. She's incorrigibly curious. Good that it was Rose, and not Rosalie."

"There are two of them?" Edward sighed, shook his head.

"No."

"I don't understand."

"Someday soon, I'll tell you much more of Carlisle, and myself, and Rose … and why we are who we are. You are lucky, Bella." His smile, though, was bitter.

"Why?"

"We are unlike any other clan of vampires I have ever come across. We are as unique in our makeup as any mortal. Carlisle, myself, Rose … sweet Rose, cruel Rosalie; sometimes she is both in a single night. Carlisle was old when he made me. It gave me power beyond any of a normal fledgling. He was ancient when he chose to make Rose, yet rather than bestow power upon her as it had me, the infusion of his blood broke her mind."

Bella thought again of the howling in the woods, and Rose's immediate departure. She began to ask Edward of this, but he was looking away, lost in thought.

"Rose is my sister, and I have loved her as much as many mortal brother might. I fear for her. I fear for what may happen when I leave."

"Leave?"

"I cannot stay here much longer. Twenty years, maybe less. Carlisle and I …" He trailed off, eyes clouding again. She saw sorrow there, and anger. Finally he sighed, shrugged, looked away.

"You don't like each other, do you?" Bella's voice was soft.

"We _despise _each other." Edward turned to face her again.

"Why?"

"You felt his evil. You know it does not reside in me. He assumed the blood would convert me, change me as it had him. It did not. For four hundred years I have been his errand boy, slave to the whims of a depraved fiend whose lust for power and dark knowledge know no bounds. I have seen him murder dozens in a single night, solely to try, and fail, to read the future in their steaming entrails." Bella shuddered. Edward looked at her, nodded grimly.

"I am no knight in shining armour, Bella. I have killed, many times, without repentance, and I would have you do the same. You must understand this. But I am not evil in the manner that Carlisle is evil: active, conscious, focused. I am evil like a hurricane. A force of nature, nothing more."

"There's no evil in that."

"Isn't there? But it doesn't matter. I am the creature I have been for nearly half a millennium. Any moral dilemma that might once have existed has long since been washed from me. But I still hold the rest. I still hold love for human life, and I take it only when necessary. I loathe Carlisle for his inability to feel these things."

"Why haven't you left already?"

"It's the blood that bonds. It keeps me here. But the link grows weak as my powers increase. They are already well beyond what they should be for my age. This, too, is a source of frustration for Carlisle. Most _Eresh _fledglings are not ready to leave their masters until well past their fifth century." His eyes flashed suddenly, a look of disgust crossing his features.

"Yet it is _his own fault_!" Edward snarled. "He waited too long to make his children. He knew that age makes the blood unpredictable. He knew that if I was not driven mad by it, I would wield power unlike any ordinary fledgling."

"But he keeps you here anyway …"

"Out of spite, yes, and malice. Carlisle hates me, perhaps more than I hate him, but he would not be rid of me. I am _his_, do you understand? Or so he feels." Bella took his hand, kissed the fingertips.

"This is the world within the world, Bella." Edward's voice was gentle now. He looked again into her eyes. "This is a secret life unknown to those who walk during the daylight. Humans have their legends and rumours, movies, television, comic books … but they do not believe."

Bella was kissing his face now. Chin, cheek, lips. Edward kissed back absently, his mind still on their discussion. Bella moved her lips to his neck, felt the pulse of his blood buried beneath the flesh, and was overwhelmed with sudden desire.

She pressed her new, sharp teeth against the flesh, waited for his acknowledgement. Apprehension. Would he deny her this gift? Would her yearning go unfulfilled? She heard the smile in his voice.

Satisfaction. He understood now; she wanted what he offered.

"It is yours for the taking, Bella. It always has been." Bella, unfamiliar with the mechanics of her own body now, pressed too hard, tore instead of pierced. The blood flowed out around her lips, dripped down her chin.

Edward, his unearthly calm never leaving him, lifted his hand to her head, pressed her against him. Bella wrapped her arms about him, fastened herself securely to his neck. Drank. Swallowed.

Warmth unlike anything she had ever known. Dizziness, desire. The blood coursed over her tongue, down her throat, hot and wet and alive.

Bella moaned, her arms tightening, and here it seemed was everything she had ever wanted. Thoughts of heroin were cleared from her mind.

This was freedom. This was love. The full, rich liquid of life which Edward now gave her freely was beyond anything in the scope of her experience.

She dropped backwards, satiated in only moments. She lay on the bed, Edward next to her, gasping, reeling.

Weeping again? It seemed she had wept more in the past Bella days than ever before in her life. Joy, pain, fear, desire.

"I understand," Edward whispered into her ear. "Ah, Bella. There will be so much for us after. Soon, my love. Soon."

_Soon_, Bella thought. _Soon and then forever_. She held on to Edward, lost in the blood, lost in the ecstasy of it all. Small kisses now, lover's kisses, and the joy she felt was too real to be wrong, too powerful to be denied.

The moment it was safe for him to do so, Bella was prepared to beg for Edward to drain her, and fill her with his blood, and finish her transformation.

Immortality beckoned.

_Hoped you loved it…_

_Please review!_

_Thanks!_

_Chantinique _


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**The Priest, the Seamstress, the Student**

The Mansion. November.

Her half-vampire nature was affecting the withdrawal. The symptoms had persisted for several weeks before finally ceasing.

Bella had been forced to endure them, as she and Edward realized feeding from him delayed her recovery. This was not made any easier by the hunger.

Even if Bella had been able to stand up to the heroin, she could not go for more than a day or two without feeding.

She found it frustrating. Edward was more patient.

"A few weeks, Bella, that is all. You are fighting it well. The symptoms are lessening. Soon you will be free of this entirely."

Bella knew this was true. Yes, she was fighting hard against the withdrawal, spending much of her time in bed with Edward at her side. Yes, the symptoms were lessening. Yes, she would soon be free of it.

It didn't dampen her anger, her sense that it was profoundly unfair that she should have to go through this at all.

After a few weeks, Bella had grown curious as to why her transformation was not progressing. She drank from Edward routinely. Shouldn't she be a full vampire by now?

She had asked Edward one night after drinking, sitting with him in a small parlour on the western edge of the mansion's first floor.

The room was dimly lit, the walls lined with leather-bound books, furnished with couches of crushed red velvet and dark mahogany.

Edward had explained that he considered the room 'his' and had cleared most of Carlisle's clutter from it long ago.

"No. Right now, I am only replacing the blood your body uses to power itself. Think of it like trying to gain weight. If you burn every calorie you take in, there is no change. When you take in my blood, your body converts it to a compatible form with its own. Right now, your blood is not complete.

"When I finish you, I will drain you as far as you can go, nearly to death. Then you will drink from me. Your body will be so desperate for the blood that it will absorb it without conversion. You will effectively replace your blood with mine. Over time, and with repeated feedings, that blood will work within you, changing you. Some of the effects will be immediate, but most will only be a shadow of the abilities you will one day possess." Bella raised her eyebrows.

"Repeated feedings?"

"Our strain of vampire is very powerful. The ruling class, effectively. But the nature of the blood differs from the other strains. Our fledglings must drink, periodically, from their masters, or risk reversion."

"I can be human again?"

"You can." Bella contemplated this.

"You'll need to explain this all to me some day, Edward. How vampire bodies work."

"What I know, I will tell you. Unfortunately, Carlisle has limited my access to writings on the subject, so there may be questions I cannot answer. I will try my best, though, and there will be many years in which we can learn, after you are complete."

_If I let you complete me_, Bella thought, but she found that this carried little weight.

The idea that she could return to humanity was intellectually interesting, but she no longer held the belief that vampires were monsters. Not all of them, at any rate.

She was no longer terrified by the prospect of becoming one. If Edward heard any of these thoughts, he gave no indication.

Bella was not prepared for a lecture on vampire physiology at the moment. She was still too warm and content from the blood. It would put her to sleep. She changed the subject.

"Where is Rose?" She had seen the perky young vampire here and there throughout the past few weeks.

Rose would stop by periodically to say hello, although she seemed to have knack for catching Bella at a bad time, and her visits were usually restricted to a greeting, a short expression of sympathy, perhaps a few questions.

After "let me know if there's anything I can do for you" (which Bella believed to be genuine sentiment), Rose would leave to hunt. For the past few days, though, she had been simply gone.

"Rose stays in the city sometimes, if she's in the mood. She will return eventually."

"Ah." Bella lounged on her couch, happy to be where she was. Thoughts of drugs and needles, pimps and hookers were far from her mind.

That life was gone. Dead. The last remnants of it had largely left her this week, with the end of the withdrawal.

Her mind instead looked toward the future: a life of luxury and power. It seemed miraculous how quickly her life had changed. Change: Bella was wearing a pink dress and a diamond necklace that must have cost more than she had earned in her entire life.

She had not put on a pair of jeans since her bath with Rose, only a series of gowns and robes. Edward had not forced these things on her. Bella had chosen them.

She enjoyed it, this expression of femininity, so rare in her previous life. She knew it wouldn't last.

She liked wearing jeans and a t-shirt, liked pulling her hair back into a ponytail and forgetting about it. But for now, she was content with the dresses. Edward rarely left her side. When he left, usually to feed, he was rarely gone for more than an hour, and he spent most of his time doing his best to make her comfortable.

The withdrawal, it seemed, sometimes pained him more than it did her. His sorrows at seeing her suffer filled Bella with an odd happiness. It proved that he cared.

"Is there anything specific you would like to know, Bella?" Bella considered this question. For days now, she and Edward had hardly uttered a word to each other.

There had been little need. He could read her mind. His expressions, his touches, these were enough for Bella. They had forever for talking, and in the time before forever she wished only to enjoy his presence. Now, though, she was curious.

"There's a lot I'd like to know, Edward. Where should I start?"

"It doesn't matter."

"How very Zen." Edward smiled, nodded, continued to look at Bella in his direct manner. From anyone else, this would have set her slightly on edge. With Edward it was simply natural.

"Who are you?" Bella asked, smiling slightly. Edward nodded, as if he approved of the question.

"I am Edward Cullen. I was born in Norway, in the late 16th century. My family immigrated to Great Britain while I was still very young. It was there I met Carlisle, there I felt the temptation of immortal life and succumbed to it. I haunted London like a bloodthirsty ghoul for more than a hundred years. The new world called, we answered, and have been here since." He raised his eyebrows, as if questioning whether this would suffice. Bella smiled, shook her head.

"No, Edward. Who _are _you?" He grinned, expecting this.

"You'd have me condense four hundred years into an evening?"

"Four hundred years are four hundred years. A story's a story, Edward. It will take as long as it has to."

Edward looked into her eyes, and Bella felt herself swimming suddenly. She gasped.

"Don't fight." Edward's voice, next to her yet distant. "Don't fight, Bella." Bella breathed deeply. Stopped fighting. Floated. Descended.

_Did you enjoy?_

_Please leave a review!_

_Chantinique _


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Who He was

His belief in God was unshakeable, impossible to destroy. It was the glowing light that directed his every action, his every thought.

Edward had been a priest for less than half a decade and he still loved God in the pure, glorious, righteous way reserved even in the clergy only for the very young.

His black robes were only clothes; his faith was his armour, and Edward cut through the sea of unbelievers around him without a fear in the world.

Bella resisted this vision, incredulous. Edward, a priest? It was impossible, this being who seemed so utterly comfortable with his vampire nature.

Edward reminded her again not to fight the trance. Sit, watch, understand.

His parents. Mother, hair blonde, eyes blue, tall and broad through the shoulders. Lithe but full at the bust and hips, she was a picture of beauty standing at the window in Edward's tiny room, singing lullabies, whispering softly to her young child where they might someday go, what they might someday see.

Father, dark in hair, green eyes, like Edward himself. Grecian in ancestry, but without the wiry curls, which had been ironed from his head by the passing of generations.

Edward, child of no more than a year, black hair, green eyes, his mother's pale skin, the face a combination of features that would someday serve to make him a handsome young man.

His face would make women shake their heads behind his back. A priest? Looking like that? A waste.

Edward did not know if his memories of this time were accurate, or fabricated from stories and assumptions.

He believed them to be honest recollection, but would never truly know. In these memories, mother and father fight sometimes. Living is difficult.

The house is small, drafty, uncomfortable. The theatre has not called in weeks. They have no roles.

In London, though, there is work. Father makes trips there, auditions repeatedly, desperate, despairing.

The alcohol is beginning to take hold of him even now. He is granted reprieve when the notice finally arrives. An actor is needed. He has been called.

At three years of age, Edward said goodbye to the land of his birth, a land he would never see again.

_Never? _Bella asked, pulling back from the vision momentarily, _never in so many years? Never has there been time, nor did any great desire, Edward answer_.

It was a happy childhood. London before the industrial revolution, a thriving metropolis, dirty to be certain but still possessed of a remarkable charm Bella could find no words to describe.

Edward, age nine, running through the streets ahead of his mother and father. Running to see the players in the square, the Italian entertainers with their puppets and music and dancing.

Laughing and running, never seeing the horse bearing down on him, its rider as distracted by the sights and sounds as Edward himself. The horse tried to clear him, but failed.

Edward remembered the sharp crack of its hoof against his forehead, the blooming brightness in front of his vision.

He remembered the second hit, coming as the back of his head connected with the cobblestones. The force of the impact was tremendous.

He imagined that everyone in the world must have heard the sound of it. All of this was clear in his mind, but Edward remembered no pain.

Only the flat, hard cracking sound and then rolling horrified faces rushing toward him, the world greying, fading.

His mother, tears pouring from her eyes, pulling at her own hair as if somehow in injuring herself she might heal her son.

_It's all right, mamma, _he wanted to say. _It doesn't hurt. _

Darkness, then. The clip-clop noise of horse hooves, but this time he moved along with them.

There were rushed, babbling voices, more weeping, a rough hand holding his. Even Edward could not entirely piece together the events that followed. Vast blank spaces lay in his memory, interrupted by photo-flashes of consciousness.

A bed somewhere, his father sitting in a chair, looking out into cold London rain and weeping without realizing it. Rough shadow of a beard, unkempt hair. Staring and weeping.

It was the most frightening vision Edward could recall, worse even than when the bottle finally took hold of the man for good.

Edward had never seen the man looking so forlorn, would never see him so again.

Another period of blankness, and then his mother, leaning over him, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth. She was singing to him, those old lullabies.

He'd asked for the songs to stop some years ago, a young man in a child's body, no longer needing the comfort they brought. But now? Oh, now they were comfort eternal.

He was so frightened. These periods of blankness terrified him. There was nothing, except the knowledge of nothing, and he thought for the first time in his mortal life that he might be coming to understand what death was.

Ah, if he could have cried out, he would have wailed. Little heart racing at the thought that there was nothing more, that there was no heaven, no God waiting for him at the gates, ready to embrace him and comfort him and help him to understand what it all meant, this mortal life.

More grey.

Then the vision. A doctor, a nurse, and his mother. She was arguing, fighting, weeping again. The doctor looked sympathetic, but firm.

"There is nothing we can do. We have bled him, tried every potent tonic known to raise one from unconsciousness. There is nothing we can do. He will drink broth, if we pour it down his throat, but he does not awaken. There is nothing we can do." Over and over.

A litany, a chant, a curse. Behind them, like the coming of the dawn, a light was growing, so bright it burned his eyes.

How could they not notice this? How could they go on squabbling with each other when faced with such a thing?

Through their arguing, he heard the sound, building and building. A rushing, driving sound that seemed to swell until it was near unbearable, as if all of the voices in the world whispered at once.

The light throbbed and pulsed. Edward wept. Fear, awe, confusion. Was this death, then?

Perhaps his acceptance into heaven after his stay in grey purgatory?

_Is that what you wish, then? _It was all voices, no voices, a whisper on the wind, a chorus of screams.

Edward's temples throbbed with it. He tried to shake his head. No. No, this was not what he wanted.

Death? He was nine years old. There was still so much to do, to explore, to see, to know.

_You would live? _Edward found he could answer the voice, could have spoken to it all along. _Yes. I would live. Until I am dragged, kicking and screaming, to my death, I would live. _

_So be it. Speak, Edward. Call to them. I cannot. _But he could, and did, opening his mouth, stretching his throat, peering desperate from his bed as the light and the noise receded.

"Mother …" The word cut across the room, stopping his mother mid-sentence. She turned, the doctor and nurse staring with frank disbelief. There were tears again; now, welling in his mother's eyes, but not those of anger and frustration and sorrow shed just moments ago.

Edward sat up, blinked, tried his voice again. He looked his mother in her eyes, took in her joyful weeping with that same calm that would be with him for all his life.

He spoke from his bed, spoke for the first time since the horse had hit him, spoke for the first time since he had descended into the depths of coma, five months before.

"Mother, I wish to go to church."

_And…._

_Please review_

_Chantinique _


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter12**

**Finish**

"From that day forward, there was no question in my mind what I was meant to do. I was meant to live, yes, but more than that; I was meant to communicate what I had seen to others. I had been sent a vision from God. A reprieve from death. You ask how I could be a priest? I ask you … how could I not?" Bella looked at him, somewhat astounded.

A vision from God? She knew how it would be considered in this modern era: a vision from the subconscious. Nothing more.

Edward grinned, picking this thought from her mind as he so frequently did.

"Is there any real difference? I woke. I moved. I spoke. Are these things not miraculous?" He paused, looked out the window, seemed to ponder for a moment. He looked back at Bella and shrugged. "People do not survive comas of that duration unfazed. There is brain damage, if not death. Yet I was fine. More than fine; I awoke with the clearest sense of purpose I was ever to feel, until the moment I first laid eyes on you.

"Ten years old, I began my studies. Three years younger than any before accepted to the clergy. Such was my fervour, so substantial my knowledge of the Bible within only a few months from when I awakened, that there was no reason to deny me.

"And oh, how my father despised it …" The words trailed off, a bitter smile at his lips.

Bella was about to speak when the howling began. She jerked around instinctively, knocking a pretty crystal ballerina off the table by her couch. It thumped into the plush oriental carpet, unhurt.

Bella stared out the window. In the reflection of the lamplight she saw Edward shake his head.

He reached down to pick up the figurine, studied it for a moment, set it back on the table. More howling, and Edward looked toward the window again, his eyes full of remorse and pity.

"What is it, Edward? I've heard it before."

"I am Carlisle's son. Rose his daughter. That? That is nothing more than a diabolical experiment. Daughter? How could she be? To say so denotes some sort of humanity, and all of that has been lost." Bella looked at him, confused.

"There's another vampire?"

"There are many others. Of Carlisle's line, though, there is only one more to tell of. One more you have not met. An attempt that should never have occurred. His arrogance …" Edward trailed off. Bella had rarely seen him truly angry, but he appeared so now. He shook his head again.

"Her name was Alice. She seems still to respond to that, so that is what we call her. Aside from the shape of her body, this is the last piece of humanity she retains. I do not know why Carlisle chose to make her.

"After Rose … how he could possibly have expected a normal fledgling, I do not know. I don't think he really did. I think he simply wanted to know what would happen.

"I took the girl from her school. I brought her to him. I did not ask any questions of Carlisle, and am not sure I would have even if I had known what he planned. Not then. Now? Who knows?

"His blood is too powerful. The curse of our line … We make few fledglings, and have a limited window in which to do it. Carlisle was nearly too old when he made me. Yet even after Rose, he gave his blood to this girl. He gave it to her very quickly, nearly drowned her in it, and it destroyed her mind. She is, in some respects, the perfect vampire. Alert, aware, incredibly fast, stronger even than Rose, who is many years her senior." Edward glanced again out the window, then back at Bella, smiling without humour.

"Alice can be counted on for three things. She loves to hunt, she loves to kill, and she loves to – as mortals so callously put it – fuck. It is appropriate terminology. There is no love involved for her."

"Another vampire with an active sex life …" Bella raised an eyebrow.

"It's an uncommon strain, even among our type, but it seems to have lain dormant in Carlisle. He himself is incapable of that mortal act of love. Yet his children, all three of us, are very much alive below the waist. These pleasures pale, of course, to that of feeding, but when mixed together appropriately …" and here he glanced at Bella, "they can be quite pleasurable indeed."

"Will I get to meet Alice?" Edward grimaced.

"Yes. At some point, I suppose, it's inevitable." Bella was contemplating Edward's description of Alice, neither speaking, when she sensed a third presence in the room.

She looked up at Edward, who closed his eyes and sighed. His expression was grim.

At the door stood Rose, and yet not Rose. She looked different, somehow. It wasn't the style of clothes, or the hairstyle. These remained the same. The set of the body, perhaps? There was darkness behind her eyes.

"Hello Rosalie," Edward said without opening his eyes.

"Edward. Come hunting with me?"

"I've already gone."

"Would it have mattered?" Edward shook his head.

"No."

"You never hunt with me." Rosalie's tone was dry, emotionless. She was only stating a fact. Edward glanced up at her.

"I never do."

"But you'll hunt with that perky, jabbering bitch, when she's got control of my body." Edward nodded. "And you'll hunt with this … half-mortal … thing. Someday."

"Enough, Rosalie. Watch your tongue."

"Or what? You'll hurt me? I'll let _her _back in while you're doing it, Edward. She won't understand. She'll cry." Bella watched all of this, fascinated and amazed by the change in the vampire girl. Even the tone of Rose's voice was different. The vampire turned to her suddenly.

"Quit staring at me, or I'll rip your eyes out with my teeth," The words were almost casual. Bella looked down at the floor, her pale face colouring slightly.

She was not afraid, exactly, but aware that vampire society seemed hierarchal, and not wanting to break any codes of conduct. She assumed it was the right thing to do. The air in the room seemed to go cold.

Edward's anger was palpable. He stood slowly, and Rosalie immediately moved backward a step, glaring, defiant

"I would no sooner do physical violence to you, Rosalie, than I would to Rose. Or Alice. Or Bella. I do not enjoy causing harm to others of my own kind. To anyone. But you will not threaten her, at all, let alone in my presence."

"Who are you to command me, brother?"

"I am not your brother, Rosalie. You are an aberration. A mistake. A product of powerful blood on an unsuspecting brain. That body belongs to Rose. You are merely a parasite that refuses to die."

Rosalie made a snarling cry of outrage and threw herself at Edward. Bella leapt off of her couch, pushing herself into the corner. She didn't want to be watching this.

Surely blood would be spilled. Yet Edward merely caught Rosalie's arms, dragged them to her sides, pulled her face up to his, locked her with his eyes.

"Does _that _hurt, Rosalie? Do I even need to lay a finger on you, when the truth will do so well?" Edward's voice was still calm, still collected. He seemed almost disinterested.

Rosalie had no answer to his question. Edward let her go, and she slunk back to the doorway.

"Go. Hunt." Edward's tone implied that the dismissal was beyond argument. Rosalie opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, whirled on her heel, and departed. Edward took a deep breath.

"And now you've met Rosalie. What do you think?" Bella shrugged. She returned to her couch, sat down, smiled slightly.

"I think she's a bitch." Edward laughed.

"Yes, a bitch. That's exactly what she is. Such a shame. Rose could have been an incredible vampire. I've never met another whose essential goodness was so utterly untouched by the transformation. In my darker moments, I almost believe Carlisle made her solely to attempt to destroy some of that goodness."

"She doesn't seem like his type. Neither of them do, really. I'm not sure anyone is."

It still seemed foreign to Bella, speaking of "them" when referring to a single body, but she had seen more than enough proof of Rose's dual personalities.

"No, no one truly is, but Rosalie is certainly much closer than Rose. I can't claim to fathom Carlisle, and I've served him for nearly half a century. No, Rose is not what I would have expected from Carlisle. Perhaps he saw in her the potential of Rosalie, and expected the change to bring it out completely. Perhaps it would have, if his blood was not so strong."

Howling again. Bella looked out the window into the night.

"I think I want to meet Alice," she said. "It's weird, knowing she's out there but never seeing her." Edward smiled at this, shook his head.

"No you don't." Bella raised her eyebrows, leaned forward, set her elbows on her knees – giving Edward as ample a view as her chest could provide in the process – and smiled, batting her eyelashes.

"You're not going to let me?"

"No, and if you insist on trying anyway, I will have to stop you." Bella considered this. It was unlike Edward to deny her a requested indulgence.

"Why?"

"Alice is not friendly." No elaboration. No change in Edward's expression

that might have helped to explain his unwillingness to expose Bella to this woman. Bella pressed on.

"I know what she's like. I told you about the dream. I can handle it."

"That was not a dream, Bella. Alice throws off mental images like sparks from a fire. That was very much a real event that you witnessed that night, and I can assure you she's even less pleasant in person."

"I can handle it!" Edward sighed.

"It's not your ability to handle it that I'm concerned with. It's my ability to handle Alice. She doesn't like vampires, other than Rose … or Rosalie, she doesn't seem to know the difference. She tolerates me only because it

is clear that Rose likes me. She will not set foot near Carlisle, although he is the only thing I am currently aware of that she fears."

"So, she may not like me." Bella was unfazed. She had dealt with women who didn't like her before, had knocked out teeth when necessary.

"You do not understand, Bella. Alice is a machine; an engine of destruction. She is built to kill, and she is remarkably capable. If she decides not to tolerate you, she will attempt to kill you. Previous experience has taught me, quite harshly, that even I am not necessarily fast enough to prevent her from doing so. Carlisle's visitors were … quite upset."

Edward pressed his palms against his eyes momentarily, sighed, shrugged. The gesture was oddly human, oddly endearing. Bella smiled.

"Okay, Edward."

"Someday soon, Bella. I promise. But not out in the woods and not unless she's fed. I want her to see you through a window first or, better, a set of bars, before you come face to face."

"Would you cage her?" Edward laughed.

"I don't know if I would. I doubt that I could. Trying to force an ordinary vampire into a cage is hard enough. Alice …" He shrugged, letting the thought carry.

Bella got up, walked to the couch he sat on, and reclined against him. He traced the pink silk of her gown from shoulder to neck with a finger, placed his hand under her chin, and brought her lips to his for a small kiss. Bella sighed.

"I feel so … _girly _around you," she said at last, laughing at herself. Edward grinned, said nothing, traced the contour of her breast with his fingertips.

He was not looking at her, but rather at her reflection in the window, blurred and indistinct. She watched him watching her, and considered the life they might lead together.

_I'm ready, _she thought. Bella took a deep breath, asked what she wanted to ask.

"Finish me?" The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment before sinking, given weight by their implication.

"I would not have offered you a choice," Edward said after a moment, "had I been able to do so on the first night. I was … rather arrogant, really, in my desire. Now? Bella, you must mean it with all of your heart and soul."

_How can I ever be sure? _Bella thought to herself. _How could anyone ever be sure?_

But what was it that she was leaving behind? Drugs and prostitution, beatings, the constant humiliation heaped upon her by her desperate life. Even if she was free of the drug, now, what else did she have to go back to? There was no home, no money, no support save that which Ben and Angela might offer out of pity.

Did she want to return to a life of picking pockets, shoplifting, breaking into cars? Edward was offering her escape. She was not tempted by the money, the clothes, the fast cars, the expensive furniture. These things mattered little to Bella.

Here though was a chance for love and redemption. Everything she could possibly desire was here in this mansion, on this couch.

The blood was here, and if it held power over her now, half complete and unable truly to taste it as a vampire might, then what might it be like once the transformation was complete?

"Love and lust, passion, need … it is all things, Bella. Yet it is nothing more than another drug in the end. It is not the blood you need to accept. The blood pushes itself upon you regardless, and you _will _do whatever is necessary to acquire it.

"You ask me to make you a destructive force. A tornado. A fire. A flood. A thing beyond the scope of mortal comprehension, who kills at her whim, because it is her nature to do so." Still quiet, but wasn't she now simply giving Edward the chance to say his piece? She could feel the desire growing within her.

The taste of what he offered: the blood, the escape, the strength to put her past behind her, the possibility of all this and more was intoxicating. Edward's words of caution seemed weak by comparison.

"You will have to kill," Edward said. "Oh, Bella, you'd be such a vampire. Lover, fighter, mother, killer. It's all in you. I sense it. Yet I can no longer blindly force you down this path. You must lead yourself. You …" Bella put her fingers on his mouth, turned her head, locked her eyes with his.

"Edward. Finish me." He paused a moment longer, looking into her eyes as if searching for some fear she might be hiding. Bella knew that all he would find there was truth.

Indeed, Edward smiled at her, and nodded. Strong arms, lifting her, carrying her toward the bedroom. Her arms were around his neck. In this short moment, Bella bid her mortal life farewell.

Pain, anguish, hatred and despair; these were the hallmarks of this life, a dark void lit only by the occasional candle of friendship, an almost non-existent light. What chains bound her to these things?

Bella fled without moving, fled on Edward's feet, toward the bedroom and away from the darkness that had oppressed her since her first memory.

_So?_

_Thoughts?_

_Reviews?_

_Thanks guys for the support!_

_Chantinique _


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 13**

**And so she awoken**

There was pain, but not like before.

Edward's teeth pierced the flesh of her neck, but to Bella it seemed minor. Far away. The pain was a vehicle to an end result that she truly craved.

"Ah …" the slightest sound as she felt her blood begin to flow. No pulsing climax this time, only a bittersweet ache of desire.

This act was no culmination of lust, but rather a final act of love. Bella sighed, feeling tension leave her.

The draining sensation increased, seemed to swallow her. The thudding of her heart, the deep rush of her breath, these things soon brought her to a state of near hypnosis.

Edward held her gently in her swoon, drinking, his lips against her neck, judging her pulse.

Waiting. At last pulling away. Bella looked up, eyes half-lidded. Breathing seemed difficult, but the sensation was so far removed she could not be sure.

The world was grey and dim. Edward's eyes alone seemed to shine out at her. She heard herself say something, the words lost instantly. She would have to remember to ask Edward later what it was, what she'd said.

_Is this death? _She had time to think. _This apathy, this dimness? _

Her heart pumped in her chest for what felt like the first time in minutes.

Weak. Bella could not keep her eyes open. A voice, whispering. Drink. Drink.

And there was pressure at her lips, and warmth, and a deep rushing sound which seemed to swell in her ears until it vibrated through her entire body.

Edward felt Bella's arms tighten around him and breathed a sigh of relief.

For a moment he had been in mortal terror that he'd killed her before she had a chance to drink. Her words to him had shaken him quite badly, more so for the fact that she clearly had not heard them herself.

He'd made the cut at his throat immediately following her declaration, and pressed her lips to it, imploring her to drink.

He felt now the force of those lips, burning like heated iron, felt the draining of blood, enough now that her change was assured.

He was dizzy. Trace amounts of the drug must still have remained in her. It was no worse than dining on a young woman filled with red wine, or warm brandy, though, and he had done both. Rose's voice at the door. A gasp of surprise.

"Oh!" Edward gestured to the chair beside the bed, careful not to disturb Bella, now locked so tightly to his neck that he would have to pry her off.

She was gasping for breath here and there, whimpering slightly, still lost in swoon.

Her thirst would be far greater than ever before. It would take time to satiate her. He heard Rose sit down, felt her take his hand and press it to her cheek.

"I'm so happy for you, Edward." He felt her muscles stretch as she smiled. But he could feel tears there, too.

_Darkness, my love. All I see for us is darkness._

Bella's voice, Kate's words. Had she not whispered this exact prophecy more than three hundred years ago, tears coursing down her cheeks, reflecting the moonlight like rivers of silver?

Bare skin, sharp fangs, joined at the waist, joined at the neck. Dull throbbing, dull roaring, the blood, the skin, the tears, and then that whisper. And all that had followed.

Tears at his fingertips. Rose weeping, he knew, for the beginning of the end.

Edward had betrayed her at last, as they both had known he would someday do. How was she to live as Carlisle's servant? What was left for her now that Edward had Bella?

Only Alice, and the darkness at the end of the hall; madness on either side greater even than her own.

Tears at his throat. Bella's? Kate's? Edward drifted between New York of the 21st century, and London of the 17th, and heard again those words. Darkness. Darkness.

Who better to speak of darkness than those forsaken by the sun? Who better to voice those words than a vampire?

"_I would make her my bride." _

"_You will do no such thing." _

"_You cannot hold me forever, father." _Edward felt himself reaching the limit of his strength.

Bella had drained him as much as he dared allow. He unwound her arms from his neck, pushed her lips from his wound, pushed her words from his mind.

Consciousness came to Bella like layers of red gauze being lifted from her eyes. She could feel Edward's arms around her, holding her safe, as the blood rushed and roared.

It burned her veins, as her empty body sought to replenish itself, but the hurt was far away. Unimportant.

She spoke his name, forced her eyes to focus, looked around. Rose, too, was here now. Not Rosalie. Bella could tell solely from the expression on the face.

Melancholy, and yet filled with happiness. Tear tracks were drying on her cheeks. Rosalie could not have looked like that if her life had depended on it. Bella coughed.

"I'm thirsty, Edward." Rose laughed at this. Bella felt Edward take a deep breath.

Bella put her arms behind her, took her weight away from Edward, and glanced around. The light, previously dim, now seemed much brighter. It was not overwhelming, but the change was drastic.

Rose stood in a corner now, smiling in a way that said she knew precisely what Bella was experiencing.

Bella flexed the muscles of her arms. Edward watched her, his uncanny calm returning once again to mask whatever he might be feeling.

"How do you feel?" Rose asked. Her grin said she knew.

"Thirsty. Hungry. Strong." A pretty laugh and Rose glanced at Edward.

"I think the young lady's in need of a drive, Edward. Time to show her what she really is." Edward stirred as if waking from deep contemplation. He turned to Rose.

"And what are we, really, sister?" Rose's smile didn't waver, nor did it turn bitter or cynical. She raised her eyebrows a bit, eyes gleaming.

"I believe we are predators, brother."

"Ah. Yes. That we are. Do you understand this, Bella?" Bella considered.

"Does it matter who I drink from?"

"Not so long as their blood is untainted."

"Or relatively so," Rose chimed in. Edward sighed, and her smile widened momentarily.

Bella looked out the window, thinking. One name came immediately to mind.

"Not tonight." Edward's voice was flat. Bella turned to him.

"Why not?"

"He'll wait. There will be time to avenge the wrongs of your past, Bella. Tonight is about your future."

"Who would you have me kill then, Edward?"

"There are twelve million people sleeping in that city, Bella, and several hundred thousand between us and them. Pick one." Bella mused, looking frustrated. Rose watched, obviously confused, but not yet ready to interrupt with questions.

"You confuse the mortal desire for revenge with some sort of higher purpose, Bella. You will have it, but not tonight." Edward's voice carried no judgment. He was simply stating the facts.

Bella looked over at him, swallowed, closed her eyes momentarily. This was not what she had expected, exactly. Edward's calm description of vampirism had seemed so clear, so easy to accept.

She had expected to come through to the other side believing in it as thoroughly as she had when she asked him to finish her. She had not expected this nervousness, this concern.

"How do you mentally prepare yourself to kill someone?" Bella's voice was plaintive.

"I thought that … when I was finished, that I'd just want it. That I wouldn't care." Edward shook his head.

"No, not at first anyway. Eventually you will come to understand, or to rationalize … it depends to whom you talk. At first it will likely be hard for you. I do not think, though, that your current thirst will let you wait, and that is perhaps for the best." A moment passed. Bella sighed. He was right.

"There was a town, in a little valley, surrounded by trees. I saw it on the night when this all started. You took me there." Edward nodded. "There, then. If we're ending what was started that night, we might as well do it there." Edward stood and grinned. It was like sun breaking through on a grey morning.

"A good idea. We shall go there. As beautiful as you look in that gown though, Bella, I think you may find your old dressing habits more suitable to this line of activity. I will meet you in the garage." He departed. Rose remained. "Who did you want to start with, Bella? Who were you talking about?"

"Someone I should probably just forget." Bella opened the closet and peered at the clothes within. "Someone who maybe deserves worse than even I can give him." Rose raised her eyebrows, then shrugged. If Bella didn't want to talk about it, that was okay. She turned to leave. "Will I see you there, Rose?" Bella did not turn to look, but her voice betrayed more nerves, more fear, than perhaps she had intended.

"Do you want me there, Bella?"

"I'm going to cry, when … I hate crying. Edward's been doing this for so long, I don't know if he understands anymore. He's …"

"He's above it all." Rose understood. Bella could hear it in her voice.

"Are you?"

"Nearly so, but I still remember. Bella, I'll be there if you want me to be there."

"Edward's car won't fit us." Rose smiled. "I have cars of my own. A pretty little red BMW, for one. I know where you're going." She shrugged her shoulders. "Is it hard for you to ask, Bella?" Bella nodded. "Then I'll ask. May I come with you, Bella? I'd like to be there, but I thought you might want only Edward." Bella turned to her, smiled, clearly fighting against tears.

"Yes. Thanks. I'm scared, Rose."

"It will be beautiful, Bella. You'll understand soon. I'll see you in town."

It was only after Rose had departed that Bella thought again of that look of melancholy, those tear tracks on her cheeks.

_Please leave a review and tell us what you thought…_

_Chantinique _


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Chapter 14

Their time

Edward leaned against the edge of the Ferrari, staring out into the night beyond the light spilling from the mansion's garage.

On the perimeter of their land, a twelve-foot wrought-iron fence served to dissuade most random visitors. The persistent few found the yard patrolled, during daytime hours, by a pack of vicious Rottweilers, mammoth dogs with jaws capable of crushing human bones to powder.

Those who chose to leap the fence at night rarely made it to the front door before Alice found them.

The mansion was not without human visitors, though. Carlisle maintained contact with men in high places, mortal and immortal alike, though for those of the former type he disguised his own nature with both costumes and hypnosis.

There were the servants, as well – Men and women who arrived once or twice a week during daylight hours to clean the house and tend the grounds.

The Rottweilers knew them, and allowed them entry. They were unaware of the nature of their employers, and knew only that some rooms were off limits, locked to them.

They were paid very well for their discretion, and Edward had never had any dealings with them that were not pleasant.

He met with them periodically, during the early morning hours, fighting off the sleep and the pain of the sunlight, in order to read their minds and be certain of their loyalty.

Some vampires kept servants – slaves essentially – in thrall to them, bound by drops of blood and convinced that someday, if they behaved properly, they too could become vampires.

Absurd, of course: the vampires of all but the Burilgi line were very picky in their choice of fledglings.

Having become a servant to another creature in itself made these thralls the most unlikely choice for an heir.

"Hypocrite." The tiniest whisper of his own voice, a bitter smile. Was he not a servant to Carlisle? Had Bella not been a servant to her pimp?

Was she not, now, his own servant, dependent upon him for instruction and for blood? This last he doubted, and this gave him satisfaction. Bella had been the proper choice.

She was with him out of desire, not desperation, and would remain so for as long as such desire continued. This might be a decade, might be a millennium.

Regardless, it was more pure than the bond that held him to Carlisle. He believe that, with luck, it might last half a millennium or more. Long enough, perhaps, to finally bury Kate.

The dresses had made Bella aware of her own femininity. These clothes made her aware again of the raw physical appeal of her own body.

Tight, slate coloured jeans; a stretchy, white shirt showing off the slimmest crescent of her abdomen; a black leather jacket.

She felt strong, comfortable, desirable. Edward's double-take as she entered the garage reinforced this.

"Be still my heart," he said as she slipped into the leather interior of the Ferrari. Bella smiled. He sat down beside her and started the car. "Is Rose coming?" Bella nodded, then bit her lip.

"I asked her to. Or she asked me, but I wanted … I'm scared, Edward."

"I understand. You need not fear, Bella. We will be there to help you." Bella's newly enhanced senses were better able to cope with the speed of the Ferrari, but still the world was a blur.

The car glided along the dark roads, top down, the sound of the wind like the crashing of a waterfall.

Bella's hair streamed out behind her. She felt the big, stupid grin back on her face despite the evening's forthcoming events, and was glad for it.

Behind them, now and then, there was a flash of lights. Rose's roadster could not hope to compete with Edward's, but it was by no means a slow car either, and she drove it with an abandon that concerned even Edward.

At one point he slowed somewhat, and she caught up with them immediately, pulling alongside, grinning wildly, barely watching the road.

Edward stomped on the gas pedal, flying ahead of her, and slowed again. Rose pulled back to their side, middle finger extended, laughing.

His words, made audible by the force of his thought, cut through the wind.

"Please do not feel we're making light of this, Bella. It is just that we are both excited nearly beyond containment. We cannot help being joyful. We know very well what you are soon to experience."

Bella, who felt that the closest Edward might approach to "excitement beyond containment", was mild enthusiasm, remained sceptical. She was not offended, though. Quite the contrary, Edward's games with Rose helped to ease her mood.

These beings had been doing this thing for hundreds of years. If they could take it so lightly, perhaps their words about the effect of the blood were true.

They covered the fifty miles to the small town in less than half an hour, came to a stop in the parking lot of a small park just outside its boundaries, shut off their engines, got out of the cars.

Rose was giggling like a little girl, perched on the hood of her BMW, looking at the Bella of them.

"I love this century! We don't do that nearly enough, Edward." For his part, Edward was smiling broadly. He nodded.

"I don't know how the hell you guys do it." Bella was also smiling. She felt out of breath. "I couldn't see a thing."

"You will continue to change as the blood works on your body, Bella. In a few decades, you may be able to drive like Rose."

"No one drives like me!" Rose laughed, leapt to her feet, twirled circles on the road in the moonlight, staring upward at the stars.

"Well, perhaps not exactly like Rose," Edward conceded.

"I'm thirsty. Who's going first, here? Bella? Edward?"

"What about you, Rose?" Bella questioned.

"Nah. I'll wait and go into Manhattan. I might take an appetizer up here, but what I really want is to find some cute little sixteen year old thing with big boobs and too much makeup. I'm going to get her all drunk and seduce her." Rose's smile had a wicked edge to it.

Bella looked at her, eyebrows raised. Rose laughed at the expression.

"What? All vampires have to be like mister 'no, heterosexual food only, please' over there? I'm equal opportunity, bed and blood. Whatever strikes my fancy."

Edward put a hand to his brow and shook his head, but Bella could see humour warring with, and eventually winning out over, the look of disapproval he was attempting.

"I guess I'll go first." Bella sighed. Edward touched her cheek lightly, smiled, turned and began to walk down the road. Bella and Rose followed.

They moved toward the town, and the unsuspecting humans who slept there.

"This reminds me of my first time," said Rose as they walked. "I mean, not with a guy but, you know, like drinking blood and everything. After Carlisle made me, he sent me out with Edward, and said he could teach me everything I needed to know."

"I am more your patron, in most ways, than that ancient—" Edward began. Rose interrupted him.

"We know how you feel about Carlisle, Edward. Shut up and let me tell my story!" Bella laughed.

The expression on Edward's face was typical of an older brother: exasperated, and yet she saw a great deal of love there as well.

"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, Edward took me to the city, took me to a brownstone. Hmmm … maybe I should start at the beginning?"

"Will it lessen the deluge of words you no doubt have prepared, if you structure your thoughts first, I wonder?" Edward's voice was wistful as he looked up at the stars. Bella laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth, looking at Rose with bright eyes.

"You're no better than he is." Rose tossed her hair playfully. "Fine, fine. If you don't want to hear my story, we'll just walk in silence. Or maybe Edward could think of something more structured. Accounting, or law, or something."

"I want to hear the story, Rose. Honestly." Bella tried to look apologetic, succeeded only in half-stifling another burst of laughter.

"I don't know how Carlisle found me. Either does Edward. Or if he does, he won't tell me. I don't know why he made me what I am. I was twenty-three, working in a garment shop, making clothes. I was a seamstress. It was eighteen-seventy-two, and they paid me two dollars a week. Can you believe that?"

"A _week_?"

"A week. I lived in that dirty, rat-infested pile of bricks in Brooklyn, and I worked for two dollars a week. My whole family worked there, except my father. He died when I was just a little girl.

"When I said I loved this century, I meant it. It's so _clean _now! Even Manhattan. Even the dirty parts. The streets aren't filled with mud and manure. I can drive my pretty little car wherever I want to go. I can buy perfume and beautiful clothes and, if I want, I can walk around in nothing but a bikini, and no one will even say anything. Girls do it in the summer all the time."

Bella found it fascinating, this new take on what seemed to be such mundane aspects of life. She realized that even given her love of art, she had remained wholly grounded in her 21st-century world. Rose was not of this time, and her amazement at things Bella had always taken for granted was refreshing.

"One evening as I left the building, there was Edward, standing in front of me. He said that my presence was urgently requested by a great lord, and beckoned toward a carriage. Even then, he had a taste for fast vehicles. There were six _huge _horses tied to that carriage, each of them worth more than I would ever earn in my life. Big wheels with wooden padding on the axles to remove some of the shock.

"It still bounced and jostled something awful, but he drove it like a madman anyway. Oh, of course I went. There was no doubt that he did represent some wealthy lord. The carriage alone proved it. And when the rich beckoned, well … it was always wise to follow.

"I was totally unaware of what was going on right up until he put his fangs into me." She looked at Bella and shook her head, her smile sad. "It was pretty disgusting, but it didn't stop me from, you know … like right then and there."

Bella nodded, glanced up at Edward, her face colouring slightly. Edward seemed absorbed in contemplating the moon.

"He drained me all the way, and then gave me some of his blood. I didn't wake up like you did, though. No, his blood was … it hurt me. Really badly, actually, even though he gave it in three or four doses. I remember I was screaming, and then it was dark, and then it was four days later, and I don't remember any of them." Rose's voice, normally so happy, now trembled.

"I can't even _feel _her!" She cried, then bit her lip in frustration. "I only know she's there because Edward tells me about her, and because sometimes I wake up and I know it's been more than one day. I'll wake up in new clothes. I'll wake up and find horrible pictures spread out on the bed. She likes terrible things. Things with needles and knives and hooks. I'm only glad I can't remember how she eats. I don't want to know."

"She is not a part of you, Rose." Edward's voice was soothing. He was still looking at the moon.

"Really, Edward? She cut me, the other day. She cut me from the back of my wrist up to my shoulder, half an inch deep, and then … went back. Let me in. I woke up all of a sudden, standing outside in the woods, with my whole arm feeling like it was on fire, pouring blood. Poor Alice was having _conniptions_. I don't know what I was being punished for.

"She hates me. She hates me because she can't escape from me, and if she can't escape from me, then she must be a part of me."

Edward was quiet. He turned away from the moon, looked down at the road. He seemed to have no answer to this. Bella spoke up.

"If she's a part of you, Rose, she's a part that was supposed to be buried. Carlisle's blood woke her up, but she's not a part of you that was ever supposed to … to function. She's like a set of wisdom teeth that never come in, but never need to be pulled, except Carlisle pushed them forward. She's like a benign tumour, except Carlisle made it malignant. You see?

"We've all got parts of us that are dormant. They don't affect us, even subconsciously. But I guess the right shock can wake them up. But she's not a part of you, she's a wrongful _addition_. You were already complete to begin with."

Rose seemed to take some consolation in this. She stopped, hugged Bella, and kissed her cheek.

"Thanks. I thought I was supposed to be tagging along to comfort _you_!" Bella smiled.

"You are. Glad I could return the favour."


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 15**

**Father **

The trio crested a hill, stopped for a moment, looked down upon the town below them. Rose turned to Bella.

"I swear to God, I don't know why Carlisle makes us live so far outside of the city. Look at this. It's eleven o'clock and almost every light in the town is out!" Bella shrugged. Behind her, Edward laughed.

"That is precisely why he has us live so far outside of the city, Rose. It allows us some privacy, away from prying eyes. We lived in Manhattan during the first century we spent here, and it caused us nothing but trouble. I personally had to dispatch four intrepid vampire hunters, and one priest."

"Priest." Bella looked up at him. "You never finished telling me about how you became a vampire, Edward."

"Did you tell her about Father Felix?" Rose laughed peals of silver in the night.

"Father Felix." Edward's voice held a smile as well. "No, I don't believe we reached that point in the story. Father Felix is almost personally responsible for my vampirism. I say almost because modern science and psychology have helped me to understand that his actions were probably not entirely under his control."

Bella looked at Edward, head tilted, saying nothing. Rose sat down on the curb under a streetlight, leaned back on her arms, stretched.

"We have time, Edward," she said.

"Are you that anxious to hear it again, Rose? I recall – only a few years ago – you shouting something along the lines of 'forget that dead pope' at me."

"That's only because you were in one of your theological phases, with all the questioning about God and all that crap. I was tired of it." Rose's teeth gleamed, her smile having returned from its earlier departure.

"Ah. Yes. God and all that crap. Exactly what I was obsessed with at the time Carlisle brought me into darkness."

"He talks like some Goth poet wannabe. Have you heard him talk about sex?" Rose's tone was conspiratorial, but Bella knew Edward had heard it, despite appearing not to notice. She covered a smile with her hand.

"Father Felix had one outstanding flaw that put him somewhat at odds with the church, though he had gone to great pains to make sure the church was unaware of it. I would likely have been his undoing, if not for my encounter with Carlisle. Father Felix, it turns out, was very fond of young men with a fervent belief in God."

"Oh, no …" Bella was smiling, shaking her head.

"It took five years. I was under his tutelage for that long, from the age of eighteen to twenty-three. I can honestly say I never knew, and never saw it coming. We were closing up the cathedral for the night. It was dark. Empty and warm. I have the suspicion that Felix may also have been availing himself of some drink that night." Edward paused, rolled his eyes.

"I assure you, there are few things more surprising in life than an unexpected kiss from a middle-aged priest. One of those things, though, would be the feel of his hand pressing against your groin." Rose exploded into laughter.

Edward coughed, seemed to be holding back laughter of his own. He shook his head. Bella grinned, nodded.

"I imagine that's the case."

"The vampires I know are sexual creatures, barring Carlisle, and they don't necessarily adhere to traditional sexual values."

Edward glanced at Rose, who waved at him, still giggling.

"Learning more about sexuality since my days as a priest has … opened my eyes significantly. I would not be bothered at all, at this stage of my life, though I can't claim to have any particular attraction to men of any age. But then? I was horrified. Here was the man who had taken me under his wing, taught me many things about the good book, solidified in me my belief that I wanted to be ordained and helped me see it through …"

"And there he was trying to cop a feel in the middle of a fucking _church_!" Rose rolled backwards in the grass, clutching her knees to her chest, laughter renewed. "It's not that I care, I just … I can picture Edward's face. Oh my god, I'm going to die."

"I was actually so startled that, in my confusion, I asked him if he was hurt. As absurd as it was, my brain had decided that he was perhaps having a stroke or heart attack, and had simply fallen against me." Rose howled laughter at the moon.

"Stop it, Edward! My stomach hurts!" Her laughter was contagious, and Bella found herself joining, although she did not find the scene that Edward described to be nearly as amusing as Rose. Funny, sure, but perhaps the age she had lived in had inured her to these things. Finally, Rose's laughter died down. She lay on the grass, looking up at the night sky, gasping for air and breaking into giggles here and there.

"May I continue?" There was a half-smile on Edward's lips.

"Yes, please." Bella looked back to him.

"I'm sorry, Bella. Really. I mean, it's _Edward_. Anyone else, it wouldn't be that funny. You know?" Bella smiled. Nodded. She knew.

"When I was finally able to accept what had happened – and no one had moved, mind you. We both seemed frozen after I had stepped away – I shouted something about God's wrath and stormed from the church. I could hear Father Felix stammering, shuffling behind me, calling me back, but it was far too late for that. I was in the London streets, the night was still early, and I let the crowd swallow me.

"I walked for some time without really thinking of anything other than the punishments God would surely hurl down upon Felix. Plague, a rain of fire and brimstone … something. And yet, the longer I walked, the more I came to realize that this, of course, could not have been some spontaneous conversion on Felix's part. He must have been fighting his urges for quite some time before at last giving in, and for all I knew, I was not the first he had approached.

"How was it possible? How could God permit it? How could He let this man, filled with such impurity, become not only His servant, but the head of a large cathedral. It was impossible. Yet it had happened." Edward was looking at the moon again. He smiled.

"Eventually my wandering led me to a graveyard. Chance? Fate? I don't know. I could not remember the path I had taken to get there, but it mattered little. I sat with my head bowed on a stone bench for some time, until finally I implored God to deliver me from this confusion, and light my path before me.

"God did not answer, but from the darkness beyond the graves a voice whispered to me. Carlisle's voice."

Bella shuddered. Her brief meeting with Carlisle was still crystal-clear in her mind. She wondered if it would ever fade.

"Unlikely," Edward said. "He has that effect on people. I remember this first meeting with him like it was yesterday."

"You remember everything like it was yesterday, and stop reading her mind. That's not fair." Rose was sitting up again, leaning her elbows against her knees, chin resting on her palms, grinning at them.

"My apologies, Rose."

"You're just a big show off! You know Carlisle has to be close to people to do it, and you know I can't do it much at all." Edward shrugged.

"It is a gift I am thankful for. I will be curious to see if I have passed it on to Bella."

"He got all the good genes," Rose said. "I'd be jealous, but I don't have to talk to Carlisle, so I figure it's a fair trade."

"What did Carlisle say to you, Edward?" Bella was filled with curiosity.

She could not imagine Edward, or at least the young priest he had been, willingly accepting the vampire life.

_Please review!_


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 16**

**Him**

"If ever your God was listening, little sheep, he has long since gone deaf." The voice was no more than a whisper, but it cut through Edward like a white-hot blade.

He sat up, thoughts of Felix's actions forgotten, hair on the back of his neck standing on end, adrenaline surging through his veins.

The depth of the voice, the malice it contained, was unlike anything Edward had heard before.

He groped at the edge of the bench instinctively, searching desperately for defence against this sudden assault on his courage. After a moment, he found his shield: anger at the words themselves. Edward stood, eyes burning into the darkness.

"What creature might speak so to a man of the cloth? Show yourself!"

A chuckle. Unearthly. Edward was gripped with an animal urge to turn and flee, to simply run as fast as he could in a straight line away from this spot. He resisted.

"Show myself? Would that you knew what you ask, mortal fool."

"I ask not. I command. I command with the word of the Lord."

"That word means nothing to me; even should He make such demands of me in person. Run, little priest. Why don't you run? You lie in mortal peril, and you know it."

"I shall fear no evil." More laughter.

"No? We shall see. I answer your demand, priest." In the shadows there was movement, red eyes opening in the dark.

Edward took an involuntary step backward. His knees hit the bench, forcing him to a sitting position. Before he could regain his footing, the creature was upon him.

Edward saw only blurred flashes, so quickly did the thing move. Talons now stretching to him, and then an iron grip around his midsection.

Red eyes. Gaping mouth. Sharp white fangs. He beat at the creature with his fists, and it seemed he beat upon the stone of the cathedral walls themselves. Warm breath against his ear, sharp points against his neck.

"I shall fear no evil!" Edward cried, terrified and desperate. "Save me, oh Lord!" The creature paused, and that horrible laughter came again.

"Your Lord is busy, perhaps? I bring you death, Edward Cullen. You gave your life to your church, and what has it given you back? Betrayal. It is the way with all such institutes of faith.

"The Pope in his Vatican stronghold sells indulgences to his people; they buy salvation with gold and diamonds. The English navy is little more than a band of pirates, licensed by the Church. The man to whom you entrusted your soul preaches the evils of debauchery and lust, and yet has spent these last years lusting only for his disciple. For you.

"The church has failed you. It has taught you nothing that you did not already know for yourself. Man is corrupt. Man is evil. And if man, Edward, is created in God's image, then is not your God corrupt? Is not your God evil? Do you not, in the depths of your heart, know this?"

Edward felt hot, angry tears on his cheeks. In this, his last moment, he felt he knew it very well. Father Felix, the sinner, safe in his church under the eyes of God.

Edward, the faithful servant, trapped here by a creature from the very graves in which soon he was destined to lie. The vampire caressed the contours of Edward's face, grinning above him, seeming to delight in his sorrow.

"You are young and strong and beautiful, little priest, and I am in need of an heir. I offer you the only chance for true salvation you will ever receive. I offer you the opportunity to defy your God, to renounce Him and His image. Renounce your humanity and be reborn, remade, in my own image. Become immortal, and escape the black hand of death."

Edward was gasping for breath. He tried to force his mind to think rationally, tried to find the faith which had once powered him so completely.

He would let this faith guide him into the afterlife, secure in his knowledge that God waited there for him.

He found instead only a memory: the light and sound of eternity from that hospital bed long ago, and his words, spoken not by his mouth but his mind.

_Yes. I would live. Until I am dragged, kicking and screaming, to my death, I would live._

Here then was his death, and it would take him regardless. Faith or no faith, acceptance or denial, death held him now and offered only one way of escape.

The young are rash. Edward, twenty-three, with little practical experience outside the world of the church, found his faith tested, and found it lacking.

He leaned his head back, bearing his neck to the creature that held him. Let it happen. Let his body be remade in this image, and so chase away the spectre of death forever. What more evil could it bring than had been allowed within the sanctified doors of his very church?

"So be it," Carlisle whispered. His neck arched, teeth bared, and there was pain … pain like Edward had never before felt. He screamed into the night, but his voice drained away with his blood.

"For ten years I raged in my hatred against humanity with tooth and claw and mind. I took women in pairs, quartets, more. Half a dozen a night I would drain to the last, that I might drown my hate in blood.

"I was the very image of Satan himself, presiding over heights of debauchery that Father Felix could never have conceived. They bathed in each other's blood, and I lapped it from their bodies, to the tune of their cries of passion. They loved it. Oh, they loved it."

They were walking again. Edward looked straight, down the road, unable to meet Bella's eyes. His hands were clenched into fists, his lips pursed into a thin white line.

"They loved it, and I hated them for it. And I hated myself even more."

"Edward." Bella touched his arm.

"Do these things surprise you, Bella?" He took her hand, tightened his own around it for a moment, let it drop.

"No. Not that you hated yourself for it. That's no surprise at all. That's not you, Edward."

"Is it not? Carlisle did not instruct me in these things. His first attempt was a dismal failure. The very next night I awakened, horrified to discover myself on a stone slab in a mausoleum, and Carlisle was there, with a human. He forced the man's neck to my teeth, laughing at my screams, my prayers, my promises of atonement and reasoning with a God I had forever left behind.

"Oh, and his sweat was rank. Bitter. Disgusting. His screams mingled with my own, but I drank … and drank. I felt him pass into death, and I wept. Carlisle looked upon me in disgust and left me there weeping, returning only near dawn to drag me back to the crypt where the coming sun paralyzed my limbs, battered me into sleep.

"It was four days before I drank again. I starved. The thirst raged until I could bear it no longer. I took another human, this time away from Carlisle, who had once again left me to my own devices, appalled at my inability to accept the gift he had given me.

"There was a young woman, kneeling at the grave of her father, whispering, grieving." Edward shook his head, his eyes distant. "I took her like a storm, unfamiliar with my strength, desperate in my hunger. I broke her spine shoving her head backward, tore away the heavy garments at her neck, ripped most of her throat out with my teeth … all of this before she could even have been aware of what was happening.

"And when it was done, I was glad. I was glad to take something from these creatures of God, and leave them nothing in return."

Bella watched him, saying nothing. Edward's face was grim. There was no reminiscence in this tale, only the memory of events he would sooner have forgotten.

"It's all rather sordid, really." Rose came up behind Bella, touched her shoulder, looked at Edward. "Sort of surprising, given your nature, Edward. My first time was so cut and dried. You brought me to that nice man's house in Brooklyn. His wife had passed away earlier that year and he _wanted _to die. We sat and talked, kissed a little, and then I took him. He died smiling."

"You know less of my nature than you might think, Rose. I've had four hundred years to study it, and learn it for myself."

"Well, what I know of it is that you're way too conservative to be a vampire, and you're really good at getting Bella all nerved up on her first night as one!" Rose touched Bella's shoulder again, smiling, impish, unwilling to allow Edward any more time in his melancholy. Bella laughed.

"Actually, I sort of figure that this can't possibly be as bad as what Edward just described."

"I assure you it won't be." Edward at last looked at her, then glanced down the street again.

They were approaching the first houses on the outskirts of the small town, windows dark and dead. Bella supposed that in the day the town must look quaint and picturesque. She wondered when she would see daylight again, how long it would take before her body was equipped to cope with it, as Edward had told her it would be.

For now, she supposed it didn't matter. Edward and Rose had adjusted to life under the moon. So would she. Strains of music in the air. Bella listened, but couldn't pinpoint the source.

"Where's that music coming from?"

"You owe me fifty dollars." Edward was grinning at Rose.

"Shit. _Fuck! _I totally thought it'd be at least another half mile."

"What are you talking about?" Bella questioned, bemused.

"I heard it about a mile ago. Edward, probably back by the cars. We made a bet on when you'd hear it, while you were thinking about Edward's story and not paying attention. I didn't think your ears would get that good, that quick." Rose shrugged.

"There is a bar. It is the only place you'll find anyone awake at this hour, without invading homes." Edward gestured down the road, toward the centre of town.

"I think there you will find a suitable—"

"Client," Bella muttered.

Edward raised an eyebrow, and she shook her head.

"Never mind, Edward. Old memories."

"I know those well. This man … you'll know him. You'll sense him. Trust me."

"And why is he suitable?"

"You wanted someone who deserves death, yes?" Bella nodded.

"He beat his wife to death, two years ago, for breaking a glass while cleaning the kitchen. She was six months pregnant with their first child. He beat her to death with a chair leg, and then drove across three states to dispose of her body. He lied his way through the investigation and came out clean. She is still considered a missing person."

"How do you know this?"

"I read the paper, and I read minds. I was curious. I parked my Ferrari, walked through the woods, stood in the shadows outside his home and concentrated until I had all of the information I wanted."

"Why didn't you kill him yourself?" Edward shrugged.

"They are mortals. What does it matter to me? Besides, as Rose mentioned previously, I prefer to drink from women."

"Is this the wrong way to start, Edward?"

"There is no wrong way. There is only the thirst and the blood. Is this what you wanted, Bella? If it is not, I can happily lead you elsewhere, but I thought here you might find some respite from guilt." Bella nodded.

"This will work, Edward. Are you sure I'll know him?"

"You will sense that darkness in him, I believe. For me it shines out like a beacon." Bella took a deep breath, steeled herself.

"Okay, then." She headed for the bar alone.

Please review!

Chantinique


	17. Chapter 17

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 17**

**The hunt**

The bar was everything Bella would have expected from this small, old-fashioned town.

Yellow wood glowed mellow in the dim lights, dented and scarred and shined by decades of service.

A television in the corner, above the heads of the customers, was attached with screws that were two years – maybe three – away from pulling out of the water-stained plasterboard.

It was playing old reruns of _Sanford and Son _with the volume turned down.

A few ailing tables were scattered near the far end of the building, most empty.

Someone was asleep at one of the wall booths, and three or four men were clustered near one end of the bar.

The reaction to Bella's entrance was immediate, their stares like a physical force pressing against her.

The sensation reminded her of her pool hustling days. She grinned, glanced around, moved toward the bar, away from the cluster of men.

"Help you?" The bartender looked to be in his late fifties. His voice was all Jim Beam and Camels. Dark, scraggly hair, three days of stubble. Not the one.

"What's your best red wine?"

"Nothing you'd probably consider good." At least he was honest. Bella smiled at him, looked to the beer taps.

"Just a Molson, then, please."

"Do I need to card you?"

"Don't know. Do you?" The bartender turned away, grinning. She watched the glass fill with the amber liquid.

The idea of actually drinking it seemed a foreign concept to her now. After the blood, everything else had lost its appeal.

Bella doubted she would be able to stomach it, even if she were to try. But she wasn't going to try.

By the time the glass arrived in front of her, she'd found the one. Dark, quiet, withdrawn.

His thoughts were black things, and she could feel them on the air like tendrils of wet mist.

Edward was right. The violence of which he had spoken seemed to exude from this man in waves, and with it something else – an undefined ease that told her the rest of what she needed to know.

There was no guilt here. No remorse. This man had murdered his own wife and child in cold blood over the breaking of a glass, and sat here now feeling justified.

He looked at her now, and Bella could see the beginning of desire in his eyes. She stretched, her nipples outlined against the white cotton of her shirt, navel exposed, and glanced at him with smoky eyes.

She could hear the blood pounding faster in his veins. The glance had been perfected during her time with Mike.

She tossed it out, caught her prey, and began to reel him in. Phantom images seemed to dance across her mind: a woman's horrified eyes, terror becoming distant and detached in death. A shovel. His breath in the cold moonlight.

Bella smiled at him as he moved toward her, hand on the bar, drunk and unsteady.

"Hello." Her voice was sweet sugar, long and slow and husky, full of promise. He nodded to her, sat down on the stool next to her, glanced at her untouched beer.

"One for the road?" he asked. Bella smiled.

"Something like that. I didn't come here for beer."

"Oh no?"

"I've been on a trip, and now I'm headed back into the city. Back to my boyfriend. But I couldn't go without one last stop. I couldn't go without …"

Bella let her eyes flick down, just briefly, then return. She could see his eyes darken as his brain, or perhaps another organ, completed the thought.

"Do you have a wife?" she asked him.

"No. Not … no."

"A house?"

"Yes."

"I'd like to see it." She left a fifty on the bar.

Edward and Rose were not there, but Bella knew that they had not gone far. She could not sense them, but she wasn't trying too hard.

They had no reason to leave, only to keep their presence unknown to this man. She was sure they wanted to watch. This was her first true moment as a vampire.

They walked along the road that, only minutes ago, Bella had travelled in the opposite direction. They didn't talk.

Bella was nervous, shuddery, trying hard not to show it. The thirst was growing in her by the moment. She could smell the blood now, so close to his skin.

"What was her name?" she asked.

"Who?"

"The wife that you told me you didn't have. The one you lied about." The man was momentarily taken aback.

He paused in his step, looked at her, eyes wide. Bella glanced back, the playfulness gone from her eyes.

"What was her name?"

"Look, I don't know who you think I am. I'm Peter …"

"I didn't ask who you were. I asked what her name was." Peter swallowed hard, shoved his tousled brown hair back from his forehead. Bella stepped toward him, touched a stubbly cheek, smiled again.

"It's a simple question, Peter." She moved her lips over his, barely touching, pressed the tip of her tongue to the centre of his upper lip. He opened his mouth instinctively, and the touch became a kiss, long and damp.

She touched below his waist, and what she found there was rock hard, despite his concerns.

The nerves were gone. They'd slipped off as the moment approached, and Bella was cold now.

She played her lips about his neck, tasting his salty sweat, not yet bitter from fear.

Peter's hands were limp at his sides, his breath speeding. With one hand she touched his hair. The other unbuttoned his pants, navigated beyond his boxers, touched skin to skin. He shivered.

"Were you hard like this when you did it, Peter? Tell me her name." Peter moaned. Fear? Lust? Bella's hand quickened. She smiled sharp teeth against his neck.

"Tell me her name, you fucking murdering piece of shit."

"Ch—Charlotte. Her name was Charlotte. Oh, _God _…" Bella pressed her teeth against the flesh, pressed hard, waited for the pulse. She had been here before, on the receiving end, and found the wait now even more interminable than it had been then.

That instant before release had seemed to her unbearable, but waiting for the moment when she could take the blood proved worse.

Peter stiffened. His heart pulsed. Bella bit down. What began as a cry of passion became a scream of pain, trailed into a moan somewhere between horror and ecstasy.

Peter sagged. Bella followed him to the ground, attached at the neck, lost in the blood. Ambrosia. Red and throbbing.

Tears at her eyes, carving hot little tracks down her cheeks. The heart stopped, the flow of blood ceased, and Bella pulled back, gasping. Crying.

She looked at the body before her, limp organ hanging from open pants, the neck a still shot from a horror film.

She stood; staggered backward, felt her heels bump the curb, felt her knees trying to buckle.

Bella sat down at the side of the road with his seed on her hands and his blood in her mouth, arms across her knees, head down, sobbing.


	18. Chapter 18

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 18**

**Life in Shadow**

Curbside. Sometime later.

She felt Edward's hand on her shoulder, heard Rose sigh beside her, felt a cloth cleaning her hands. Bella made some sound, pressed herself against Edward, couldn't stop crying. He ran a hand through her hair, kissed the top of her head.

"Was it what you thought it would be?" he asked at last.

"No," she said into his chest, miserable. Edward waited. At last, Bella was able to stop crying. She leaned against Edward, sniffling, eyes closed. Rose was still holding her hand.

"What was it then?"

"It was horrible. It was beautiful." She didn't see Rose glance at Edward, to exchange with him a tiny smile. Bella loosened her grip around Edward, sitting up and looking at him.

"How can someone so awful contain all of that beauty?"

"The blood doesn't care about the vessel. Some vampires are like vigilantes. They take only from murderers, rapists and the like. Others take only from sixteen-year-old virgins. The truth? It doesn't matter. The blood is the same regardless." Rose nodded.

"It's why we make our choices the way we do. It's not worth worrying about. Someone catches my eye, and that's that. I guess Edward started you off with this guy because you were already looking for some kind of revenge?"

"Yeah." Bella was trying not to look at Peter's corpse. Revenge against anyone seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind.

"It doesn't matter though, Bella. You need to learn that. It's mortal sentiment."

"Sorry. Never done this before." Bella ran a hand across her eyes. The liquid was pink. She stared at it for a moment, laughed incredulously.

"There is nothing to be sorry for. It is understandable. But as you can see, Bella, you are not human anymore." Edward stood, glancing toward the body. He reached down and helped Bella to her feet. She followed his glance and grimaced.

"I don't even know why I did … that." She gestured toward the unbuttoned pants, the piece of meat hanging out of them.

"Part and parcel of the thirst, Bella. It's a desire. A lust. They're tied together, particularly for those of us lucky enough to retain our sexual capabilities."

"You're a natural, to be honest. Not many new vampires could have pulled off simultaneously grilling the guy about his wife and keeping him mesmerized at the same time. Edward and I were impressed." Rose leaned down and, with an air of complete indifference, put the offending item back where it belonged. She hefted the body up on one shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"What do we do with that? With him?" The expression on Peter's face, a mixture of horror and pleasure, made Bella queasy. She looked away.

"Good question. After a while, maybe ten, fifteen years, there's not a 'that' to deal with. Eventually you won't need that much blood," Rose said.

"For the Ay'Araf and Burilgi vampire strains, that's almost immediate. Their fledglings stop needing to kill within a week or Bella. Ashayt vampires … within a few months. Eresh vampires go into a deeper trance and take much longer to learn how to break it. Years. Rose still kills sometimes."

"No. I don't. She does." Rose's voice was quiet.

"My apologies, Rose."

"S'okay. It's weird, Bella, but the stronger we get, the less we need. You'll learn how to control that mesmerism stuff. Then you can keep them from remembering. They wake up feeling kind of crappy, figure it's the flu … end of story."

"You can purposely do that?"

"Oh, sure. One time I was with these two guys and this other girl, and we were all getting pretty into it, you know? And I was all hot and I started biting without even really thinking about it, and then the girl started freaking out, because this guy was, like, dripping blood on her, but he had his eyes closed and thought she was, you know … just getting off. So he keeps right on banging away at her, and I—" Edward cleared his throat.

"Rose, do you have any stories that might illustrate your point without requiring a detailed description of your various acts of debauchery?" Rose tilted her head, thinking.

"No." Bella laughed.

"It's okay. Sounds sort of fun, before the screaming anyway. But that only tells me what to do with something alive. Peter has, uh … moved on." Bella tried to feel bad about this, but found herself unable to manufacture any guilt.

The truth was simple: this man was as much a killer as she was, and it was difficult to be remorseful about what she had done.

"Well, we could just leave him. The bite marks fade. Carlisle says it's something in our saliva." Rose shrugged, an odd gesture with a body slung over her shoulder.

"Don't know. I'm no biologist."

"There were others in the bar," Edward said. "No investigation will find us, but it's best to take reasonable precautions. We can take him into the woods and bury him."

"With what?" Bella asked. Edward and Rose exchanged another glance.

"You'll see," Rose said, and began moving up the road toward the edge of town.

The lack of shovels proved to be of little concern. Digging by hand is no, for a vampire, the difficult task that it is for a human being.

Fingernails do not break, flesh does not cut or wear, strength does not flag. Work proceeded rapidly.

Rose chattered away at them. Bella and Edward were mostly silent, half-listening, absorbed in the work.

"This is good for you to learn, anyway, Bella. If you ever get caught away from someplace safe, and the sun's coming up, you can actually dig down and go into the earth if you have to. It's not the most pleasant way to spend the day, but it works. I had to do it once when I pissed off Edward and he left me in the city.

"I was halfway through walking back when I realized that I wasn't going to make it in time." At this, Edward glanced up.

"I have never left you anywhere you did not wish to be left, Rose." A moment's pause, and she shrugged.

"Must be remembering it wrong. Anyway, it's sort of funny. It's not really the bugs or worms that bothered me, or even the difficulty breathing. It was the scent. I could smell everything rotting. It was pretty disgusting." Rose stopped working for a minute, a far-off, quizzical expression on her face.

"What the hell was I doing out there anyway? I could have sworn we had a fight, Edward. You don't remember anything like that?" Edward shook his head. "Guess I'll have to trust you. You remember everything."

"Largely, yes. It's of no real concern, Rose."

"I suppose." Edward stood, brushed off the knees of his pants.

The hole was done. Rose dumped Peter in with no more reverence than if she were a farmer dropping a sack of grain.

Bella felt as if she should say something, shook it off. Human sentiment. She was no longer human. It was a waste of time, and Edward and Rose were no doubt hungry.

She joined them, tossing the dirt back over the body with her hands. Finished. Less than an hour, and they'd managed to camouflage the hole quite well. Bella's watch said it was nearly two in the morning.

"Do you guys need to, uh … eat?" Edward grinned. Rose laughed, brushing her hands together, trying to rid them of dirt.

"Yes," Edward said, turning and walking away from the grave. "But that doesn't have to take long."

"Ooh, are we going to get to watch the master at work?" Rose's voice was merry as they tramped through the woods.

"If you'd like, though I've never claimed to have mastered this particular aspect of our lives. We can return to the town."

"We're pretty deep into the woods. Should we get the cars?" Bella asked. She didn't really mind one way or the other, but it seemed impractical.

"None of this is, or particularly needs to be, practical, Bella," Edward said. "It's for your edification mainly, and now is an opportunity for another lesson. Keep up!" Edward turned, grinning, and took off like a shot through the woods, moving faster than seemed possible.

Bella felt her jaw hanging open, and closed it with a snap. Rose laughed and ran after Edward, crying out for Bella to follow her.

Bella took a deep breath, and started to run.


	19. Chapter 19

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 19**

**Desire**

The sensation was like nothing Bella had ever before experienced. She had no idea how fast she was moving, but it seemed faster than even a trained sprinter could accomplish.

And such agility! It was as if she ran not through moonlit forest, but on solid pavement. Her feet seemed to cope with the imperfections of the ground by themselves, no longer requiring any conscious effort.

Edward was far ahead, Rose roughly halfway between him and Bella. Both of the older vampires occasionally turned their head back, making sure they hadn't outdistanced Bella.

They reached the outskirts of the town in less than ten minutes, slowing as they approached, and Bella found that she wasn't even winded.

Rose was laughing; the noise pretty and bright in the quiet streets, and Bella joined her.

"That was amazing!"

"Only the tip of the iceberg, Bella. I'll take you through a vampire obstacle course sometime. You can't imagine what it feels like to take a five-story jump." Rose sat down on the curb and looked at Edward.

"You find one yet?"

"Yes, that one." Edward pointed to a small white ranch home to their left.

"What's special about that one?" Bella was confused.

"When I don't have the time or inclination to be choosy about my food, I go with something easy to attract. Young women, usually. Normally I would spend some … how should I put it? Quality time with her, and then feed."

"I'm not sure if that should offend me." Bella was smiling when she said it. Edward returned the grin.

"Another thing I've learned from other vampires: Sex is sex. Love is love. The first is a raw biological process, the latter is something more." Bella considered this.

"But love makes sex something more."

"Certainly. This is why the sex without love is merely gratification. Insignificant in its implications. That much more pleasure, in addition to the blood. Sex is sex. Love is love. I love _you_, Bella."

"Oh, and how many guys would like to be able to say _that _to their girlfriends, I wonder?" Rose had taken out a compact and was checking her eye shadow. Bella sat down next to Rose.

"A lot, I think. How many girlfriends would be okay with it? I don't know. Probably not many."

"So are you okay with it?" Bella looked at Edward, who returned her glance with the same cool grin that had so intrigued her on the night she had first met him.

She felt herself warming. The memory of Peter was fading, and thoughts of how she might spend the rest of the night were cropping up in her mind. Edward, sensing this, laughed slightly.

"Yes," Bella said. "I'm okay with it. He just watched me give the world's deadliest hand-job, after all …"

Rose burst into surprised laughter before pressing her mouth into one arm to muffle the noise. Edward shook his head, grinning. Bella smiled, stood up, reached out on tiptoe to give Edward a brief kiss.

"Let's do this and go," she said. Edward nodded, closed his eyes, breathed deeply. In a moment, the front door of the house opened, and a young woman in her early twenties stepped out onto the porch.

She looked around, caught sight of the trio, and made her way toward them.

Dark hair, dark eyes, she was generously proportioned under her nightgown.

Bella felt a momentary twinge of jealousy as the moonlight caught the swell of the girl's ample breasts, but fought it down.

She stopped in front of them, seeing and not seeing, swaying slightly. Edward was standing in front of her but off to the left.

When he touched her cheek, tilted her head, moved the hair from her neck, she sighed.

Her nipples grew hard under the cotton of the nightgown. Bella watched, fascinated. Edward could kill this woman, if he wanted to, and she would go to her death happily; might even go in the throes of ecstasy, under the right conditions.

It was amazing. It happened so quickly that Bella almost missed it. One moment, Edward was lightly caressing her cheek. The next, he had latched on to her neck.

The woman gave a slight cry, her hips bucked once, and then she slumped. Edward held her, drained her, and was done. He took a deep breath.

"Is she dead?" Bella asked. He shook his head, and indeed, the girl's eyelids were fluttering now as she fought her way back to consciousness. Edward waited until she could stand, then looked into her eyes.

"Go back to your bed and sleep, my dear. This was a dream, and when the sun rises you'll realize that." The girl turned and made her way unsteadily back to the house. The door clicked shut behind her.

"Quick, clean – not a drop spilled, and you made her want it in like three seconds. Like I said: the Master at work." Rose was smiling in approval.

"Thank you for your warm appraisal of my work, Rose." There was the slightest hint of sarcasm in his voice as Edward turned to face them.

"Welcome! Shall we go? I'm going to skip the appetizer and head for the city. Find me an all-night rave, go rolling and have dinner. Well, first I want to wash my hands, but after that."

"Will you be able to get back to the mansion in time?" Bella asked.

"I'll find some place to crash in the city. No big deal. Worst-case scenario, New York's full of little graveyards." Rose shrugged, stretched, began walking up the street.

Edward followed and, after a moment of considering how she might feel about sleeping in a graveyard, Bella did as well.

A brief moment by the cars where Bella thanked Rose for coming with them, and for being there for her. Rose smiled, leaned in low, whispered,

"I can see why he loves you." Bella was surprised to feel her heart well up at this. She'd known Rose for so short a time, known Edward, the man she felt she loved, for no longer.

Was such depth of emotion and attachment really possible? Edward, who could pluck these questions from her mind if he felt inclined, said nothing.

He left it up to Bella to find her answers, and Bella loved him all the more for it.

The ride back was uneventful, if careening through the back roads of southern New York at speeds over double the posted limit could be considered as such.

Bella felt warm and pleasant, satiated, but without feeling full. She seemed caught in a sort of afterglow, so like the effects of heroin, but clearheaded and awake. Better in every way.

They reached the mansion well before sunrise. Edward returned the Ferrari to the garage, and Bella left the vehicle with regret. She stood on the driveway, an asphalt circle surrounding a topiary display.

"I can see my breath." Edward walked up beside her, nodded.

"It's November, Bella."

"So why am I not cold?" She glanced down at herself. A pair of thin jeans, cotton shirt, leather jacket; it was not enough to keep a human warm.

"You won't feel the elements as much, particularly after you've fed. I barely feel them at all anymore."

"So I suppose the old 'I'm cold, let's go inside and get warm' line would be pretty transparent then, right?"

Edward's ever-present smile widened to a grin.


	20. Chapter 20

**I don't own anything**

**Chapter 20**

**Time**

He bit her as they joined tiny pinpricks of pain high up on the neck, away from the main vein, followed by a surge of overwhelming pleasure.

It was electric, reaching out from below her waist to touch every extremity of her body.

Bella moaned, arched her hips, thrust forward. Edward moved, changed angle, allowing her teeth access to his own neck.

Bella touched her tongue to the skin, tasted the hint of the blood in his sweat, and bit down.

The blood began to flow, and she felt the throb within redouble in intensity.

Death, life, time. They lay for millennia, for seconds. Bella didn't know, only that she felt herself building and building, always a steady ascent toward some unknown peak.

Edward's blood was fire in her mouth, waves of power and ecstasy roaring through her in a torrent.

Her orgasm, when it finally came, was like nothing she had experienced as a human being.

Unending, it left her without control of her limbs, powerless and lost against the force of it.

Black spots danced before her eyes, and she struggled not to lose consciousness.

Edward seemed gripped by a similar power, body straining against hers for an interminable moment.

The pleasure faded slowly, echoed by small jolts that Bella thought of as aftershocks.

She pulled her teeth from Edward's neck and fell backwards, gasping for breath.

The muscles of her inner thighs were trembling. Her arms felt weak. Edward lay down beside her, equally exhausted.

Bella flicked a lock of hair from her eyes and glanced over at him. He was gazing calmly at her, but still panting from exertion. Bella smiled.

"Was it good for you?" she asked, no malice in her sarcasm. Edward laughed, leaned in, licked the last of the blood from her lips with the tip of his tongue.

Bella moved closer to him, let that brief touch turn into a longer kiss. She sighed as his hand caressed the swell of her breast.

"If humans knew it could be like that, Edward, they'd be lining up in the street to make the change," she said after they broke apart.

"You may well be right." Bella felt a sudden heaviness in her eyelids and glanced at the window. The sky had begun to show the slightest sign of light.

"Draw the curtains, Edward? I won't be able to keep awake much longer. Will you stay with me?"

"Of course." Her room, like all of the rooms in the mansion, was equipped with a dual layer of heavy blackout curtains. Edward stood, unashamed of his body, and pulled the cords.

The room went immediately dark. Even Bella, with her new eyes, was only able to discern vague shapes, dark forms on a black backdrop, outlined only by the slightest hint of light filtering in from the crack under the door.

She felt Edward return to the bed with her. Another kiss, the aftertaste of blood on his tongue. She lay with her head on his chest.

"Will I need to feed again tomorrow?"

"I've little doubt. Rose still feeds daily, and it is relatively rare that I skip an evening."

"I want to do it early, then. Get it out of the way."

"All right."

"Can I get pregnant?"

"No."

"You're sure? No baby vampire Edward's and Bella's crawling around?" Edward yawned, played with a lock of her hair absently.

"Yes, quite sure. It's been tried, by others of our kind and by myself. Mortal women, half-vampire women, vampire women. None ever conceive. Vampire men, even those still blessed with this ability, don't create seed. We don't make children with our bodies, Bella. We make them with our blood."

"So you're saying that we're participating in incest, then? Willing participants, at that?"

"I try not to think of it like that." Edward's voice was dry, but Bella could hear the smile there. She laughed. Quiet, for a moment.

Bella felt sleep nearing; a rolling blackness on the horizon that would soon blot out all consciousness. She fought it. There were so many questions.

"Who'd you try it with?"

"A woman. A vampire. I … she's dead, now."

"I thought vampires couldn't die?"

"They can't die. They _can _be killed."

Bella wanted to ask more. Wanted to know who this woman was, how she had died, why there was so much pain in Edward's voice. Sleep denied her the chance.

In the darkness, Edward sighed and closed his eyes. The woman next to him, breathing soft and warm against his skin, couldn't know how hard it was to answer her questions.

How difficult it was to think of Kate. It had been nearly three hundred years since he had been with another vampire like this.

Mortals, surely. He enjoyed making love to the women he took for nourishment nearly as much as Rose enjoyed sex with her victims.

But another vampire? The feel of her skin, the sinewy strong muscles beneath it, the smell of the blood in her sweat, in her kiss, in her sex.

Bella was everything Kate had been, and more perhaps, because it was his role to be her teacher.

Kate had been hundreds of years old when Edward had met her. He had been the student, then.

His love for Bella, and the differences that separated her from Kate in his mind, did little to ease the pain, little to dampen the sorrow, little to drown out the screams.

Edward was not there when Bella awoke. As probably would be the case forever, she suspected, he arose earlier, was forced into sleep later.

Bella could hear the shower running in the attached bathroom, a mundane sound that made her feel comfortable. At home.

Bella sat up, shivering a bit. The warmth of the blood was long gone, and she longed for it.

She understood now what Edward and Rose had said. Some of the concepts behind vampirism were perhaps distasteful, but the actual experience was quite the opposite. The blood was all that mattered, and it was beautiful.

Bella got out of bed, opened the heavy maple doors of the wardrobe on the far side of the room, found a nightgown and slippers. She heard a door close outside the room.

Curious, Bella opened her bedroom door and looked out. The bedrooms opened on the grand chamber, overlooking the main foyer of the mansion.

A crystal chandelier, easily twenty feet in diameter, illuminated the area. Below it stood Rose, pulling her hair back into a ponytail.

"Hi Rose!" Bella called, waving. The blonde-haired vampire looked up and bared her teeth.

"Call me by that bitch's name again, and I'll find you some time when your superhero's not around to protect you. I'll cut your fucking tits off."

Rosalie, then. Bella fought the anger that was rising inside of her. She tried to think of the other woman who occupied the body, the one whose company she had enjoyed the previous night.

"Sorry, Rosalie." Rosalie stared up at her, an expression of frank disgust on her face.

It took Bella a moment to realize that it was her nightgown that Rose was studying. Pink, with lace trim, it was hardly the type of outfit Rosalie probably preferred.

"I'm going out to eat and to find something for Alice. Tell Edward that Carlisle wants him. He'll probably know, but tell him anyway, or I'll get into deep shit."

"Wouldn't that be a shame," Bella commented under her breath.

"Keep it up with the attitude, whore. See how far it gets you." Rosalie was gone before Bella could respond.

The shower was no longer running, and she felt Edward's presence behind her before he spoke.

"It's best not to approach Rose, unless you're positive it's her." He pulled on a pair of black cargo pants and a white t-shirt.

"No kidding. Did you hear? About Carlisle?"

"Yes."

"What does he want with you?"

"I couldn't even attempt to guess. It could be something as simple as moving a piece of artwork he has decided is no longer to his taste." Bella thought of the elder vampire, whom she had met only briefly, and shuddered.

During the time she had been near him, his strength had been undeniable, rolling off him in waves. Even had this not been the case, she had seen his broad shoulders and strong arms.

Certainly he didn't need Edward to take care of such things for him.

"Carlisle needs no one. He has me do these tasks because it amuses him. It proves I am still loyal to him. It proves I still serve him."

"What will he do when you leave him?" Edward looked at her for a moment, as if the question had never occurred to him.

"Survive. Perhaps he'll attempt to make Rose do his bidding. I doubt he'll have much success."

"Would she stand up to him? If she can, why don't you?" Edward smiled, shook his head.

"No. Rose is no more capable of standing up to Carlisle than I am. But she is afraid of him, and has less of a stomach for certain tasks he might ask of her. Dealing with her would be more frustration for him than it's worth. Half of her, anyway. The other half is almost wholly Carlisle's child."

"Why doesn't he use Rosalie, then?"

"She is his child, but not his favoured child. Their relationship is strained at best, and made all the worse by the fact that she does not own that body. No, Carlisle does not favour her." Edward grimaced. "That particular honour goes to me."

"Is that why you stay with him? Do you owe him? Or is it fear? Can he hurt you?" Bella's questions were not barbed. Edward heard only honest curiosity in her voice.

"It's integral that you understand something: Carlisle is more than capable of slaughtering every creature that walks these grounds without even exerting himself. I am powerful. Carlisle … is something closer to a god."

"But you're not afraid of him." This was not a question.

"No. Not afraid of him and not afraid of what he might do to me. I am afraid, Bella, of what he may choose to do to you, should I offend him. That is, to the best of my knowledge, the first thing that has truly frightened me in several hundred years." Bella was quiet a moment, head down, considering. She looked up at Edward.

"Who is Kate?" Edward visibly flinched away from her, eyes widening. He turned his head, but not before Bella read what she needed from his expression.

"Oh," Bella said. "Who _was _Kate?"

"Not now, Bella."

"Edward …"

"_Please_," he turned his eyes back toward her, and the look on his face made Bella want to take it all back. She wished she had never mentioned the name, wished it had not flashed into her brain in that moment before sleep.

"Okay, Edward. I …" She stopped.

Edward sat on the foot of the bed with his elbows on his knees, back bent, hands laced behind his head, staring at the floor. His expression was dark and miserable.

Bella felt adrenaline flood her system, then depart, leaving her shaky and scared. She had never expected anything like this. She crawled across the bed and stopped, unsure of how to proceed. She touched his shoulder.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Bella." Edward sounded weary. He did not look up at her.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't know!" Bella felt herself crying. Edward turned to her, wiped a tear from her cheek.

"Don't."

"I can't help it. I'm scared." Edward smiled at this, kissed her briefly.

"Scared?"

"I don't understand everything. You haven't told me everything, and now I hurt you. I don't even know how I did it. I didn't know I could. I didn't think there was anything I could've done …" Edward stood up, looked out the window, sighed.

"Kate was a vampire. In a very real sense, you owe your present fortune – if you wish to consider it such – to her. She saw the good in me even as I spent my nights bathing in the blood of those I destroyed. She helped me to find the good in myself. And I loved her. I loved her like I love you. I loved her, and I couldn't save her, and I'll never forgive myself for it."


	21. Chapter 21

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 21**

**How he met her…**

The girl made the cut below the nipple on her left breast and stood, beckoning.

Edward lounged on overstuffed cushions of velvet, warm from the first kill, ready for the second.

She was white cream against the red fabric. Pouting lips, full breasts, dark hair on her head, between her legs.

Edward reached out, took her hand, brought her to him. The girl swooned, falling against him, panting, as he drank from the wound she had inflicted upon herself.

Her death came with a tiny gasp, and the girl went limp in his arms. Edward shoved the body away, reclined, reflected. two of them, and still he was unsatisfied.

There could never be enough death. He could drown in a sea of human blood, and it would never be enough.

A walk, then, and perhaps another victim. In the ten years that had passed since his rebirth into darkness, Edward had learned little of his nature beyond that which was readily evident to him.

He would not take instruction from Carlisle, and the elder vampire in turn shunned his creation, leaving Edward to his own devices.

Edward knew he was strong. He knew he could read minds with a proficiency that seemed to enrage Carlisle.

He knew he could make women do terrible things to themselves, and in this last he sometimes took great pleasure.

There was no God, no devil, no heaven or hell. Lost in a sea of blackness, Edward let his base instincts run wild.

Women, always women. He would watch them, his powerful mind compelling them to perform acts of lust and passion upon themselves, upon each other.

He would watch, but never join them. For the women from whom he drank, Edward's touch meant only death.

Some went quietly, like the two tonight. Others laughed, wept, screamed, begged.

It didn't matter. How could it? How could anything matter at all when God had so clearly forsaken him?

Edward revelled in debauchery worse than that which had driven him from the church, and it just didn't matter.

Someone was watching him. He could sense it, and this presence frightened him.

Edward was unaccustomed to being noticed. His speed and uncanny ability to manipulate the minds of those around him made it an infrequent occurrence.

What concerned him most was that he could not throw off this feeling. It pursued him through streets, back alleys, parks, graveyards. He skipped the whorehouse from which he'd been planning to acquire another victim, moved onward, toward the townhouse.

Toward Carlisle. Toward safety. There was something humorous in that concept, that he might turn to Carlisle for sanctuary. The vampire elder had all but denounced him, yet blood bonded them.

Edward hated his master. Despised him. Loathed him. And yet this fear … The presence shifted, and he realized that the feeling of being watched was more than a mere tingle at the back of the neck.

It was spatial. It had depth. He felt the presence overtake him at a frightening speed.

There was a short moment of paralyzing terror, and then it moved onward, in front of him now, yet still focused on him in some way.

From the shadows there was laughter like silver bells on a sheet of glass. The woman stepped out from the doorway of a cathedral.

Black hair, pale white skin and oceanic green eyes. Edward felt himself lost and drowning in those eyes, and looked away, snarling.

"Do you fear everything you don't understand?" Her accent was French.

"I fear nothing." A lie, perhaps. His fright was replaced with the hot flush of humiliation. Edward was glad for this. Of the two, he preferred the latter.

"You fear me."

"You were trying to hypnotize me."

"I was doing nothing of the sort." Edward looked back, was pulled again into the depths of those eyes. He struggled to maintain focus, coherent thought, any semblance of composure.

She laughed again, but there was no trace of mockery in the sound. Edward's spine knotted and he shivered.

"Who are you?"

"Who I am would be a long tale indeed, my fallen priest. Your father knows me. Perhaps you could ask him."

"Your name, at least?"

"You can call me Kate. It is not the name I was born into, but the one I chose for myself later. After. It has a lovely sound to it, don't you think?"

"Kate. Madame. What do you want?" Edward had regained some composure. His thoughts were more clear, the sense of fear not gone, but faded. The girl, and Edward saw now that she was little more than such, laughed again.

"Ah, you are brave, child. But don't make assumptions based on my appearance. I've walked this earth for far longer than you can currently conceive." Edward looked again, trying to see past the facade.

The eyes told him she spoke the truth. They were ancient and ageless, like Carlisle's, yet without the malice that forever darkened his.

Kate smiled at him and took a step forward. Edward flinched, stumbled backward, immediately on the defensive. His fear seemed to leap forward, energizing his muscles. Kate paused, shaking her head.

"Child, if I wanted to kill you, you would be very dead by now. Do you not understand this?" Edward shook his head, a guarded expression on his face.

The woman before him was lithe, petite, nearly angelic in her beauty. A killer? And then she was gone, and he felt the lightest touch of lips against his ear. Her voice was a whisper, heard as much in his mind as by his body.

"That and more." Edward jerked to the side, flailing his arms for balance, losing it, falling. Then he was sitting. Sitting on a stone bench, vaguely aware of some sort of movement too fast even for his vampire senses to track.

"Dear God," his voice was thick with fear and confusion. The vampire, now sitting beside him, smiled again.

"You speak to Him who has forsaken you, Edward. Is this not the case? Or perhaps you have only forsaken Him?" Edward searched for something to hold on to in his confusion, and found his anger.

"I know not of Him. Not anymore. I know of fallen priests, and I know of their sins." Kate clapped her hands together at this, laughing, merry, unperturbed by his blasphemy.

Edward turned to her, teeth clenched, angry. She looked at him with calm eyes, and shook her head.

"I am not mocking you, my young priest. Ah, has Carlisle taught you _nothing_? No, of course not. Your goodness disgusts him."

"I've no goodness left in me, lady. You look upon a black hearted killer. A creature of evil." More laughter.

"I look upon nothing of the sort. I look only upon a man, and a vampire, who knows nothing of his own true nature. I look upon a man who was been led by others all his life, and knows not how to lead himself."

"I look," she said, "upon a fledgling in desperate need of answers." Edward said nothing, but turned away.

Answers? Perhaps, yes. Certainly Carlisle had provided him with little in the way of understanding.

He felt movement: Kate leaning in closer. This time he did not shy away. He was instead suddenly, acutely aware of the woman next to him.

She smelled of lilacs and blood, and he felt a wave of desire wash over him. When she laughed this time, it did not bother him so much.

"You _must _learn to guard your thoughts, my child. Such impure images from a man of the cloth …"

"I beg your pardon, Madame." He could think of no other response. Kate moved her lips to his neck, held them above the vein.

"Is that all you beg for?" Her breath set the tiny hairs below her lips standing on edge.

"Milady …" Edward felt out of breath. No mortal woman had ever had this effect on him as a vampire, not even the victims he made perform for him.

Before that, as a virgin for all of his twenty-three years, he had steadfastly disallowed any such thoughts. Now, they swamped him, overwhelmed him, swept him up.

Half-focused images, potent, carnal, flashed through his mind. Her open bodice beckoned the white breasts luminescent in the moonlight. Skin like porcelain. Hair like ebony. Lips like blood.

He sensed, or thought he sensed, some dull fire from between her legs. Edward moaned slightly. Her lips never touched his skin, yet they burned there like hot iron.

"Alive below the waist," she commented in a whisper. "How curious. Your father is possessed of no such blessing."

She touched him there, ever so gently, and Edward made some sound, some choked sob.

He began to turn toward her, desire overwhelming him. As suddenly as it had begun, it was over.

Kate sat up, and the feeling, which had been like a building explosion, drained suddenly away. Edward drew in a shuddery breath. Kate laughed.

"I like you, Edward Cullen. I shall visit you again."

And she was gone.


	22. Chapter 22

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter22**

**Killing**

"So she's the one who taught you that you could … you know?" Bella asked.

"Yes, that and much more. I wish I could tell you the whole story, Bella. I haven't the time, right now. I have to go and find out what Carlisle wants."

"I'm hungry. Should I wait?"

"If I'm not back in a few hours, then you can go yourself. Just be smart about it. I'm sure you'll do fine. Otherwise, I'd certainly enjoy your company. I thought we might go into the city tonight." Edward glanced in the direction of Carlisle's quarters, his expression of exasperation surprisingly human. Bella laughed.

"Go. I'll take a shower, and wait for you." She watched him leave, then stripped off her nightgown and made her way into the bathroom.

It was not as luxurious as Rose's, but it was quite enough for Bella, who had spent the last year showering in a cold tile room with seven other women.

She thought of Mike. Jessica. Renata. Ben and Angela. Would she see them again?

Her desire for revenge against Mike was already fading. It was difficult to maintain any concern.

Her connection with those mortal lives had been severed. She didn't need the drug, didn't really care if Mike's crimes went unpunished.

The thought of Jessica still hurt, but what could she do for Jessica? Killing Mike would only put the girl out on the street with no immediate source of the drug.

More pressing, and more troublesome, was the story Edward had begun. Kate. An elder vampire and a previous lover.

Bella wondered what had happened to her, and knew it couldn't have been pleasant.

The expression on Edward's face had been heart- breaking. There was still so little she knew about her lover.

Centuries of life that remained dark to her, stories untold. Edward was a creature beyond the scope of time Bella was capable of visualizing. She could not imagine living for nearly half a millennia.

The thought filled her both with fear and a fierce, fluttering excitement. So much to see and do, side by side with the one she loved.

Bella turned off the shower, brushed her hair, pulled on clothes. There was a plush armchair against the wall, and Edward had left a collection of Dickinson's poetry on the nightstand.

Bella sat down, picking up the book and beginning to read. The transition that began on the night she had met Edward was still happening, the blood working on Bella in ways both subtle and obvious.

Beyond the strength, and the speed, it seemed also to be shaping her mind, maximizing it, bringing it to its full potential.

She was now able to read far more quickly, comprehend on many more levels. The work, which would once have left her confused and frustrated, now fascinated her.

She continued to read, glancing occasionally at the door, waiting for Edward.

Bella's ears picked up the noises several minutes before her brain truly became aware of them.

Shuffling from down the hall. Heavy breathing. They came not from the direction of Carlisle's chambers, but from Rose's.

She glanced at her watch. It had been more than ninety minutes since Edward had left. If he did not return soon, Bella would have to go hunting without him.

She stood, set the book on the table, crept out the door, edging toward Rose's room. She hoped to determine which of the two women inhabited the body before making her presence known. The cry startled her not only because it was unexpected, but because the voice belonged neither to Rose, nor Rosalie.

It was a woman's voice, gasping for air and begging. Bella heard fear in the voice, but also pleasure, longing, desire.

"No. Please wait!" Bella crept toward the door, curiosity overwhelming her. Light shone from the interior of Rose's room, spilling gold and amber onto the carpeting of the hall.

Bella glanced through the crack, into the room, eyes wide. On Rose's bed lay a girl about Bella's age, naked and sweaty, bleeding from a wound on her neck and another near her navel. She had straight dark hair and brown skin, broad hips, heavy breasts.

Rose, or Rosalie, was straddling her, unclothed as well. There was blood on her lips and chin.

"Wait?" It was obviously Rosalie. The tone of the voice was enough. "Do you _really _want me to wait?" The girl was stammering, panting, staring up at Rosalie with huge, confused eyes.

Rosalie didn't give her a chance to form a coherent answer, but reached instead behind her, between the girl's legs. The girl cried out, arched her back, immediately matched the movement of her hips to the rhythm of Rosalie's hand. She leaned her head back, gasping, baring her throat.

Rosalie moved her head down without hesitation, feeding. Bella felt her own hunger roar to life despite her horror.

The blood, the sex; she could smell them on the air. Rosalie pulled away again, licking her lips.

"I can't finish you tonight, but I can start you. Edward thinks he can leave me here by myself. Fuck him. You're mine, Tanya."

Tanya looked up at her, semi-conscious, dazed from passion and lack of blood. Her nipples were dark, engorged with blood, standing hard, and Bella noticed that there were bite marks on her breasts, too.

A gold chain hung around her neck, its small crucifix pendant currently shoved aside, dangling in Tanya's left armpit.

"Drink," Rosalie said, and ran a sharp fingernail across her own breast. She lowered it to Tanya's open mouth. The girl latched on to it like a child intent on feeding.

Rosalie gasped, turned her head, and caught sight of Bella. Their eyes seemed locked. Rosalie smiled, but in those eyes there was only malice.

"Mine," she said. Bella turned and walked back to her room on legs that felt numb.

Three and a half hours had passed since Edward's departure. The hunger was gnawing at Bella, but she was afraid to leave her room.

Afraid that Rosalie might be waiting for her, might be looking to show off the awful progeny she was creating.

Would her blood taint the girl's mind? Would she and Edward find themselves now the only sane beings in an even larger brood of vampires?

The door to her room opened. Bella whirled, expecting Rosalie, unsure of what she might do to avoid confrontation. Edward stood there instead, looking at her, calm as ever.

"You waited."

"You … we … there's a problem, Edward. It's bad. Really bad. Something really bad is happening." Edward nodded. His expression didn't change.

"I am aware of it."

"But you didn't stop it?"

"I wasn't able to. I was with Carlisle. I believe he knew." He came into the room, sat down in a chair, looked out the window. Bella waited for him to explain.

"There is nothing to explain," Edward said after a while. "Carlisle knew, yes. I'm sure of it. He knew where Rosalie was, and what she was doing, and now there's another half-vampire lying unconscious in a cell in the basement, and Rose's been crying for the past hour."

"Rose?"

"Rosalie let her back in, as soon as she'd done it. Rose woke up naked, lying next to the girl. It didn't take her long to figure out what had happened, but she couldn't make herself kill the girl. Perhaps it's maternal instinct. Perhaps it is Rosalie exerting her will. I do not know, but Tanya is her child now."

"Couldn't she just leave? You said that half-vampires eventually revert."

"They do. It doesn't matter. They are bonded now. What will the girl do, if we take her somewhere and leave her lying unconscious? She will wake up and return home. Rosalie will eventually wrest control of the body away from Rose. When she does, she will go to the area of the city where the girl lives. Tracking her from there will be simple."

"So what do we do?" Edward laughed. There was little humour in the sound.

"Yes. What do we do? We go hunting. Then I go to Carlisle and tell him what he already knows, and find out how he wishes me to proceed."

"Would he care?"

"I do not know. The possibility exists that this is some sort of test, or lesson, or final parting gift. He might tell me to do nothing. He might tell me to slaughter the girl. To be honest, I'm not sure what the best course of action is. He may have arranged this entire event, that he might exercise one last bit of control over me before I abandon him forever."

"Would you do it?" Edward's gaze did not leave the window. He shrugged.

"She might well be better off. Rose would certainly be better off. In truth, it might be better for all involved if my parting gift to Carlisle was to slaughter those of his descendants whom I am not taking with me."

"Edward, no! Rose? She …"

"She shares her mind with something that has become progressively stronger with each passing day. Something evil that was never meant to be. Something that is slowly taking over the body that once was hers." He turned to Bella.

"The question is not whether Rose will die, Bella. It is whether she will die by my hand, or Carlisle's, or Rosalie's. She will eventually be absorbed. This leaves Alice, who is almost certainly better off dead, and the half vampire in the basement, whose name I do not even know."

"Tanya." Bella's lips felt numb. Edward looked at her, and there was a momentary dizziness. Bella's vision swam, and images of the events with Rose seemed to flicker past behind her eyelids. Then it was over.

"Yes, Tanya. My apologies, Bella. I should have asked before doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Normally I receive thoughts passively. I shut most of it out, in fact, for a variety of reasons. Occasionally though I harvest. In this instance, I'm now aware of what you saw and heard."

"How do you do this stuff, Edward?" Edward shrugged.

"All thought is energy. All energy can be harnessed. I do not know how my mind does it, only that it can."

"Edward … what do we do?" He sighed.

"My largest concern is not determining Carlisle's desire, but whether I should carry out those actions regardless of his wishes. The people who will be left in this mansion, Bella, are largely better off dead. Rose knows this. She's known it for years."

"That's why she cried last night. When you finished me." Bella felt cold and frightened. She felt as if some momentous event was taking place, something beyond her ability to control. Edward nodded.

"Your birth into darkness was the beginning of the end. It was the beginning of the end of everything she has ever known."


	23. Chapter 23

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 23**

**Meeting her**

Bella could hear muffled sobbing as they left her room. She turned instinctively toward the sound, but Edward's hand guided her back toward the staircase.

"There's little we could do for her right now, Bella." Bella looked up at him, angry.

"You're talking about your _sister_, Edward." He closed his eyes; put his hand on his forehead.

"I know exactly whom I am talking about, Bella."

"The person you've shared a hundred and forty years with."

"I know, Bella."

"The least you could do is …"

"Is what?" Edward asked, looking up at her. There was anger in his eyes, and his voice was strained. "Sit next to her? Hold her hand? Tell her everything is going to be okay? Is that what I should do?" Bella was taken aback. "I have hated myself, Bella, for things broken that I could not repair, for three hundred and fifty years. _Hated _myself.

"I know now what I must do, and may God forgive me for it, because I will never forgive myself. Rose knows I am to be her destruction. We were waiting only for the catalyst. The thing that would cause me to flee from Carlisle's grasp. It was inevitable.

"You are that catalyst, Bella. All I can think about is our life together. It is in my mind always. I want to take you away from this. From Carlisle and Alice and Rosalie. I want to show you what we can truly be, as Kate once showed me. This means leaving Rose, and for that I am truly sorry, but I cannot help myself. I must go. The final act of this little farce that Carlisle created has come.

"How can I give her any comfort? What is there to say? It is remarkable that Rose does not hate us both." Bella was silent.

She could feel her eyes going hard and wet the way they always did when tears threatened. Edward could not meet her gaze. He kept trying, and was having no success. This somehow made it worse. When he spoke, there was sorrow in his voice. And regret. And defeat.

"I should have told you. I … Bella, I'm sorry. Living for so long, it's blinded me. I act as I wish without considering others. Even when I told you I was giving you a choice, I failed to tell you what it was you were choosing. I never even thought to do so, and I apologize.

"Your choice did not doom Rose … that had already happened. It did, though, set the end in motion.

"I will understand if this changes your opinion. You are _Eresh-Chen_. You can be human again if you wish. You can take that choice back. I will not stop you."

Bella looked at him, angry and in love, horrified and filled with despair. At last she spoke.

"I want to meet Alice." Edward turned and was finally able to meet her gaze. He seemed surprised.

"Bella, I explained—"

"Now, Edward. I want to understand what I am."

"Alice is nothing like—"

"Alice is _everything _like me! No, let me finish. You've given me this gift. I asked for it. I don't want to give it back. You've let me see through vampire eyes, taste with a vampire's tongue. You've let me run like a vampire, and feed like a vampire, and fuck like a vampire, and I _love _it, Edward, but you haven't shown me what I really am.

"Whatever's inside me, it wants blood. Right now, it wants blood very badly. It wants to rip, and tear, and hate. That thing is the same thing inside of Alice, the most pure it's ever going to be. I want to see her, Edward. I want to know what's inside of me. I want to see it all laid bare, and I want to see it _now_." Edward contemplated this for a moment, shrugged, sighed.

"So be it."

The moon was like daylight to her eyes. The forest, which might have seemed foreboding to a human, gave Bella no pause.

Forests in the night were filled with predators, and there were none out this night greater than she and Edward.

They had been walking the grounds for thirty minutes. Edward did not call for Alice, and it was obvious he knew where he was going. At times he would pause, change direction, and move forward again.

"Alice doesn't stay still, and she doesn't know we're looking for her yet," he explained. "I could call, but it would do no good. I can sense her, though. We will catch up eventually."

At length they reached a small clearing. Here, Bella saw, were paths carved into the ground from the frequent passage of some creature, like a dog that runs patterns into its yard. From the woods not far away, Bella heard growling. The sound was low and guttural, the noise of a large jungle cat.

"Alice. Come." Edward said, standing in the middle of the clearing. He gave off no palpable sense of fear, but Bella thought she could hear some measure of concern in his voice.

The creature that stepped from the bank of trees in front of them moved in a manner unlike anything Bella had ever seen.

The changes that vampirism had brought to Alice manifested themselves in a far more physical manner than Bella had expected.

On all fours, the girl moved with feline grace, sliding slowly into the clearing, eyeing them cautiously and growling. She stopped perhaps twenty feet from them, staring, teeth bared. Bella shivered.

"She's not pleasant to be around," Edward commented. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Introduce yourself. Be polite."

"Hi, Alice … I'm Bella. It's, uh … nice to meet you," Bella said. She heard the nerves in her own voice, and hated herself for it.

Alice stared at her, then suddenly opened her mouth and howled. Bella flinched, but held her ground.

"She's testing you. Stand still. If she charges, I will take care of you." Edward's voice was a whisper, or perhaps nothing more than a thought on the wind. Alice moved in a wide arc around them, eyes never leaving Bella.

She was naked and filthy, her long hair – brown like Bella's – matted with dirt. Her teeth were more pronounced than in the other vampires Bella had met, long and curved and deadly.

She sat back on her haunches, watching Bella. The eyes conveyed an intelligence and awareness far greater than Bella might have guessed.

Bella sat down in the grass without thinking, meeting Alice's gaze. She held her hands out, palms up, in front of her.

"I don't want to hurt you, Alice. I want to meet you." Alice cocked her head, rolled her body forward into her walking position, and moved a few feet toward Bella.

"You're playing with fire," Edward said from behind her. "She's very fast."

"If she kills me, she kills me. Maybe that's how it's supposed to go."

Edward murmured something inaudible. Alice was now only a few paces away, looking curious.

Edward shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and Alice immediately backed up a pace, eyeing him with concern.

"Go sit on that rock, Edward." Bella indicated by tilting her head slightly to her left.

The rock jutted from the ground near the edge of the woods, twenty meters away.

"Bella …"

"She's not scared of you, exactly, but you definitely make her edgy. I don't want that. Go." Edward again said something under his breath, but Bella thought she could hear a smile in his voice, fighting against his concern. He moved toward the rock.

Alice took another step backward, watched him as he went, and turned her attention back to Bella.

"You're nothing if not stubborn, my love," Edward said.

"Got that right. Now, Alice, do you want to say hello?" Alice took a few steps forward. Bella could see the muscles in her legs, tense, ready to spring or run if necessary.

Bella continued to hold her hands out, and Alice sniffed them, seeming to relax. She sat back, cocked her head again, appraising Bella.

"Hello, Alice." Alice made a sound that started low in her throat and became a high-pitched whine. To Bella, it sounded like a dog yawning.

"How does it feel, not having to worry, Alice? How does it feel to kill, and eat, and not think twice about it? No guilt. No sadness. No concern. How does that feel?" Alice looked at her, unable to comprehend.

She scratched behind her ear briefly, followed the flight of a bat with her eyes, then looked back at Bella.

"Must feel pretty good, I bet. You hungry, Alice?" Bella brought her finger to her new, sharp teeth, and bit it. Blood welled immediately. She held her hands back out to Alice.

"You're going to give me a heart attack, Bella." Edward's voice held more tension than she had heard at any time since her encounter with Carlisle.

"Your heart's strong, Edward. You'll survive. Go ahead, Alice." Alice moved her head forward, licked Bella's finger once, twice, and then abruptly moved her head away.

"You're a killer, Alice. Take it. Take what you want. If you're going to kill me, then kill me. I refuse to be afraid of you, so kill me now, or I guess we're going to have to be friends." Alice looked again at Bella's outstretched hand, then reached up, bit her own finger, and held it out to Bella.

"Okay, Alice." Bella touched her lips to Alice's outstretched hand and tasted blood, fire on her tongue. Her hunger leapt awake, but she too pulled her head away.

"Just a couple of killers out in the forest, that's us, right Alice?" Bella was smiling, but she could feel tears making cool tracks on her hot cheeks. "Just a couple of vampires getting to know each other … getting to know who they really are." She felt Edward beside her. Alice glanced at him briefly, but did not shy away.

Edward's concern had dissipated, and in turn Alice no longer seemed to regard him as a threat.

He sat down in the grass next to Bella, and she leaned against his shoulder, still looking at Alice.

"I wish I was like her."

"Do you?"

"She's perfect. She doesn't care. Rose, Rosalie … they're the same person to her. Who'll take care of her when they're gone?"

"I had thought she was not long for this earth, Bella. Now? I am not so sure. She seems to have accepted you. Perhaps Carlisle might permit us to take her."

"Good. I understand her. I wish I was like her. Oh, God, Edward, how do you stand it? Is it always this much … tragedy?"

"No, not like this, but there is always some tragedy, Bella, and always some joy, and I am sometimes thankful for both. It reminds me of what it was like to be a human. You want to know what you are, Bella? You are a killer. You are a vampire. You are a force of nature, like the girl sitting before us. You are cursed, and you are blessed, just like Alice. She will never know the things we know, feel the things we feel. That is her blessing. That is her curse."

Bella smiled at Alice. Alice smiled back, then turned suddenly, loped off through the grass, making high yipping sounds. In seconds she was gone.

After a moment more, Bella stood. The cut on her finger had already healed, but the thirst still burned within her.

"Let's go into the city, Edward. I'm hungry." They left the clearing, moving back toward the mansion.

Overhead, the moon looked down on them, cold and distant.


	24. Chapter 24

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 24**

**Hunger**

There was no need to find a criminal this time. Bella was ravenous, and beyond caring.

"I'm fucking starving. Whatever's close. I'll hate myself in the morning, but right now I don't care if it's a virgin girl about to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Force of nature, right?" Edward had nodded, and headed for the city, the Ferrari roaring beneath them.

There was little said during the drive. Both were occupied with their own thoughts, reflecting on the recent events at the mansion. Was there any way to avoid the coming storm? Eventually Bella sighed, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the seat. Edward took her hand momentarily, squeezed it.

"This is going to drive me crazy, Edward."

"I'd rather you not let it. We have a surplus in that area already." Bella let herself smile a little.

"I don't think Alice's actually that nuts. She's just … stripped raw. I'm also not sure she's as unaware of what's going on as you guys think. That bit with the blood was pretty impressive." Edward shrugged.

"It is possible. Tonight is the longest she's ever allowed me to be close to her."

Bella fed on an older woman returning from a late night at work. There was little ceremony, this time. She simply followed the woman into her building, attacked her in the stairwell, and she and Edward pulled the body up and into the woman's apartment, where they left it.

Edward fed from a neighbour, a woman in her mid-twenties whose cats were petrified of him, left her lying flushed and feverish in her bed, and they departed.

"Why did we come so far, if it was that easy?" Bella asked.

"You will need to be careful with your eating habits for some time, Bella. Most vampires do not stop killing out of some misguided sense of morality, but for personal protection. Sixty thousand people die every year in the city and the surrounding area. It makes for good cover. But even a small portion of vampires, killing a victim per night, would rapidly raise suspicion. Fortunately, like I said, those of our strain are the only vampires that need so much blood for so long. There are not many of us."

"Why not?"

"We breed differently. Unfortunately, I do not know all of the specifics. There is very much that Carlisle never bothered to teach me, and that Kate did not have time to. I believe she may actually have withheld a great deal from me, in order to protect me until I had grown stronger."

"Kate." Edward sighed, and nodded.

"Kate. Yes. I never did finish that story. There are nearly forty years I could talk about, but most of that is empty details. A lot of hunting. A lot of sex. Fond memories, but I wish we'd done more with the time."

"I think just about everyone does, Edward."

"Yes, I think so, too. Where did I leave off?"

"She left you that first night, and you went home."

"Ah. Home. Home to sleep. Home to wait. For night … for Kate."

Edward made his way back to the dwelling where he spent most of his time. Though he had started his life as a vampire living in tombs, this was simply meant to be a lesson from Carlisle.

After a week or two of sleeping on cold slabs, Carlisle had brought Edward to his home, a large estate on the outskirts of the city.

Edward thought perhaps the lesson was that Carlisle could provide better than what Edward could manage on his own.

Edward, already falling into the anger and hatred that would consume him for the next ten years, took from his sire only the knowledge that he did not need to live in the graveyard.

Within six months he had left Carlisle and acquired his own apartment in the city. Carlisle was apoplectic. Edward didn't care.

"Kill me then," he had told the elder vampire. "Do what I now wish you had done that first night. I am damned now, so what does it matter?" Carlisle had not killed him, had let him go.

"You will return, Edward. Wait and see. Fledgling vampires need their masters more than they realize."

Thus far, Carlisle had been wrong. Edward saw him only occasionally, when he needed vampire blood. Carlisle gave it, to Edward's surprise, although not without complaint.

He would insist that Edward was being foolish, putting himself in needless danger. Edward would simply listen in silence, waiting for the blood, and Carlisle would eventually grow tired of sermonizing.

Edward saw no reason for this to change. After the initial surprise and fear of this chance encounter with the vampire named Kate, he had been unsure whether to continue on his path toward Carlisle's home, or to turn back toward his own.

Eventually he realized the truth of her words; if she had wanted Edward dead, he would be dead by now. With that realization, he found himself no longer concerned for his safety.

He turned and moved back the way he had come, mulling over the events of the evening.

Kate's refusal to believe his claims of evil and darkness, the sudden awakening of his sexual appetite. Lost in a sea of thought, Edward wandered. Contemplated.

Kate was the polar opposite of the only other vampire he had known. Was it possible that there could be more to the afterlife than the pursuit of darkness? Was this why he resisted Carlisle's tutelage? Was it his horror at his own, lost soul that made him lash out so at humanity?

It seemed he could smell her on the wind, but her presence was gone from his mind. Kate. Her accent was French. Edward smiled a small smile, and looked up at the stars.

The next night saw no sign of her. Edward fed lightly, a single girl. No performance, no sexuality. He found the girl in a darkened alley, took her before she was even aware of his presence, moved on.

He wandered, waiting for Kate, but Kate did not come. Two days. Three. His frustration mounted.

Edward began to wonder if he had simply hallucinated the entire event. It seemed unreal to him now, this visit from a creature of such power and beauty.

Four days. Five. The anger began to rise again within him. The hate cried out to him. Let go. Give up.

On the sixth day he took two women, watched them bring each other to the heights of pleasure, cut their throats like sacrificial lambs, and hated himself for it.

Seven, eight, and the memory of laughter like bells in the night were fading rapidly. A chance encounter, if it had happened at all. He lost count, descending again into rage.

Nights of red haze, lashing out against God and his creations. Had she been so close to him? Had he felt the touch of salvation? She visited him again on a cold night in October, as he wandered through cobblestone alleys, searching for prey, seething.

Cats in the background, wailing at the night. The occasional shout, the noise of breaking glass. Drunks stumbled through the alleys around him, but they were men.

Edward did not feed on men unless desperate. He found their scent disagreeable. The presence overwhelmed Edward, his step faltered, and he came to a stop.

It was like before; the sense of being watched, so specific, as if he could pinpoint the source. Edward turned, looked up. Kate sat on a small stone bridge that arched over the alley. She was dressed in a black velvet gown. He could see the white silk of her underclothes.

"Madame." Edward's breath had vanished. His heart pounded, staccato in his chest.

"Hello, my good Mr Cullen. How are you this fine night?"

"The better for seeing you, milady." Edward had regained his composure. He did not want another display of helplessness.

"You're seeing a bit too much of me at the moment, if the blood in your cheeks is any indication," she laughed, and in one easy movement dropped to the pavement, standing in front of him. Her eyes caught the moonlight like bits of jade.

"You seek to fluster me, lady," he said.

"I seek nothing at all, Edward, except to be in your presence. You are not like most of the others. You burn with goodness. It … warms me." Edward felt anger.

How could this woman see in him anything of value? He sought to shock her.

"Lady, this night I watched as a woman writhed naked in a pool of her own blood, too caught up in sinful ecstasy even to notice." Kate raised an eyebrow, smiled, her expression amused.

She touched his arm, and Edward felt the warmth of the touch through his jacket. His anger, his fear, melted. He felt again a throb of desire for the creature standing before him.

"You could at least have invited me along." Edward felt his jaw drop, astonished at this suggestion. He tried to stop it from doing so, but could not. Kate laughed.

"Would you like to walk with me, Edward?" Edward was not at all sure he had a choice, but it wouldn't have mattered.

He took her arm, and they proceeded out of the alley, into the late evening crowds. Kate chattered at his side, seemingly happy to be out and on the arm of a young man.

"It's a lovely evening, don't you think? So many beautiful ladies. So many debonair gentlemen." She paused, as if waiting for acknowledgement.

"And yet, what are they to us, lady? They are cattle."

"That is your master speaking." Kate glanced up at him. "Or your father, perhaps. I am not yet sure that one such as yourself might ever have a master."

"Carlisle commands me."

"You defy him. You maintain your own dwellings. You do not join in his politics. His black magic. His evil."

"Milady, I do not understand how you differentiate his evil from my own."

"Your evil is a fabrication, brought about by too many years taking the word of priests as the only truth. You have been trained to see yourself as evil, even as a mortal. When you become a hunter of mortals, can that be anything but worse?

"Is the tiger evil, Edward? The shark that swims in the oceans? They take mortal life as a force of nature. They take mortal life as it suits them. Their souls are clean."

"My church … would have me believe those creatures have no soul, lady."

"Your church would also have you believe that a man and a priest tempted into making advances upon his student also has no soul, would it not? Or at least, no soul worthy of salvation." Edward grimaced.

That it would."

"You see the world, the church, Carlisle and Father Felix in black and white, Edward. There are so very many shades you do not see. You have been trained to look past them. Did Felix not do well in his life?"

Edward considered this. After some time, he nodded. The man had, indeed, performed more good deeds than Edward could possibly count.

"Is that good invalidated by his carnal desires?"

"Yes. No, I … Madam, I do not know."

"You may call me Kate, Edward."

"We've only just met …" Kate laughed again, held more tightly to his arm, looked at him with her green eyes.

"My young priest, I have been watching you for two years." Edward's mind looked back over the things he had done, or made mortals do for him, in the past few years. He tried to push these thoughts away. Kate's lips brushed his ear.

"Why fight? Accept. Understand. My dear, you're a very creative vampire! You've exposed many young ladies to the true pleasures of the flesh … something this horribly repressed society might never have allowed them. More amazing, you've done it without knowing those pleasures yourself. Is it so wrong that you've shown them these things?"

"I did it out of hate."

"Hate for them?"

"No, not for them."

"Then for whom?"

"For myself. For what I am, what I allowed myself to become."

"There is no reason to hate yourself, Edward. You must understand that." Edward shook his head, bewildered.

"Lady – Kate – everything you say flies in the face of what I have known my entire life."

"Are you listening to me?"

"Yes."

"And do you understand?"

"I am trying." Kate shrugged.

"Then all is well. Rome was not built in a day."

"That may be true. I … where are we going?"

They had moved away from the crowded streets, toward a part of the city that lay mostly in darkness. Kate guided him along the cobblestone pathways, unerring, sure of her destination.

"My home, naturally."

"Why?"

A small smile, nothing more.


	25. Chapter 25

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 25**

**Bree Tanner**

They were greeted at the door by a young girl, maybe sixteen, pale with honey-coloured hair and large grey eyes. A small, upturned nose, pink bow lips. Not a vampire.

Edward raised his eyebrows at this, but Kate simply smiled her little smile, and nodded to the girl.

"Bree."

"Welcome home, mistress. Welcome, good sir." The girl stepped aside, and Kate led Edward into a small, comfortably furnished room.

A fire burned in a marble hearth on one end. Small couches were arranged in a semicircle on the other.

Through a door to his left, Edward saw a doorway leading to a dining room. To his right, a hall, leading most likely to bedrooms.

"This is Edward. Edward, Bree. She is my companion."

"You keep a human companion?" Edward asked. He was trying hard not to look at the girl, trying not to sense the blood in her veins.

"I do. It is not unusual for Ashayt vampires to spend their time with humans, or even to live with them. Bree tends the house, and in exchange I drink from her, on occasion."

Bree, standing in the corner, said nothing, only smiled. Her eyes were on the floor. Edward glanced at her, then back at Kate.

"You can do that?"

"Certainly. Human beings heal, Edward. Have you never cut yourself?" Edward shrugged. It had never occurred to him. He turned and addressed Bree directly.

"You … enjoy this?"

"I live to serve my mistress." Bree's tone was questioning. She seemed surprised that Edward found this unusual.

"Liar." There was mischief in Kate's voice. She touched Edward's arm, gaining his attention. "She lives for the pleasure."

"To serve my mistress … and for the pleasure," Bree admitted after a moment, a light blush touching her cheeks.

"Bree has never given blood to a man, Edward. Would you like to drink from her?" Edward considered this.

"I'm afraid I might kill her. I have never left prey alive." Bree's eyes widened. Kate laughed.

"You will do no such thing. Bree is not your prey. She is my attendant. Or perhaps my soubrette. Sit down, Edward." She beckoned to the couch. Edward sat, feeling confused and out of place.

Kate, to his right, motioned for Bree, and the girl sat down to his left. He could hear her heartbeat, quicker than normal.

"You're frightened of me."

"No, milord."

"No lies, Bree." Kate's voice was soft. Bree blushed again.

"A bit, perhaps."

"He'll not kill you, Bree. You have my promise. Edward is _Eresh-Chen _He is perfectly capable of restraining himself. This is not so different from giving me the blood, though you may find it … more immediately gratifying."

"Are there differences?" Edward asked Kate. She curled her hand around his, leaned her head in close.

Edward could feel the push of her breasts against his arm.

"Are there differences in the pleasures men give women, and those that women give each other, Edward?"

"I would not know, milady."

"Kate."

"Kate, I know not."

"Ah, that is unfortunate, and we will change it soon enough, my young priest. Drink. There is no reason to get Bree so excited for nothing." Edward looked at the girl.

Bree breathed deeply, returning his gaze with eyes that betrayed both nervousness and a small, burning desire.

She arched her head to the side, and Edward could see the beat of her heart below the flesh of her neck and felt himself consumed by a sudden, tremendous need.

He leaned his head in close, kissed the spot, felt her heat below his lips. Bree sighed. Edward felt Kate's grip on his hand change, moving it to Bree's breast.

He cradled it, moved his thumb across it, felt her erect nipple below the fabric of her gown.

Bree gasped, moved her head, put her lips on Edward's, wrapped her arms around him. For the first time in his existence, Edward Cullen let himself kiss a woman in passion.

He felt her warmth against him, beating heart, shared breath, fire in the touch of her lips. Her tongue, small and insistent, pressed, turned the kiss warm and damp.

He responded instinctively, biting down slightly. Bree winced a moment, then kissed harder, and Edward tasted her blood, hot in his mouth.

Kate's hand guided his. Bree's legs lay slightly apart, and Edward slid her skirts up.

He found bare skin underneath, ran a finger along one smooth thigh. Bree adjusted her position, mouth still locked to Edward's, opened herself to him.

Edward felt the brush of hair at his fingertips, and then only heat, and wet. Bree made a noise in her throat, pushed her hips forward, continued their kiss.

Kate's lips were at his ear, whispering for him to drink. Drink. Take her blood and give her release. Edward moved his mouth from Bree's, licking traces of blood from her lips, and placed it against her neck.

"Drink." Kate. A whisper.

"Drink." Bree. A plea. Edward bit down, as gently as he could, and pressed his hand against the smooth, warm, wet flesh at his fingertips.

Bree's reaction was instantaneous, violent, enough so that Edward wondered for a moment if perhaps he had hurt her much more than his bite should have.

She cried out; thrust her hips forward into his touch, over and over. Her hands made claws against his back. Edward drank, making an effort to resist the trance that wanted to blanket him, that would make him unable to stop until the girl's heart gave its final beat.

He succeeded, drank only a few swallows, and detached himself from the girl, gasping. Bree laid back in a semi-swoon, hand at her neck, breathing ragged, eyes far away.

Kate reached across Edward and adjusted the girl's skirts. Her touch seemed to register with Bree, who looked around, groggy but aware.

"Good?" Kate's voice held the air almost of an indulgent parent. Bree nodded, trying to catch her breath. Kate turned to Edward, took his hand in both of hers.

"Good?" Edward shook his head, not in denial but in an attempt to clear it, licking blood from his lips. He stared out at the fire.

"Everything previous seems distant and uninteresting," he said at last. Kate laughed her musical laugh, kissing his fingertips.

"Then all is very well, indeed! Are you tired, Bree?"

"Tired, yes, mistress. But … if Master Edward is not finished, I … would not object to indulging him further." Kate laughed again, clapping her hands, delighted.

"Ah, my dear, asking for seconds so soon? Edward will think you of low character!" Edward glanced around at this and smiled slightly.

"I assure you, he thinks no such thing."

"It matters not. Bree knows her character very well indeed. She is also much more tired than she is letting on. There is no time for further entertainment tonight." Bree, understanding this to be a dismissal, stood.

She was unsteady on her feet, so Kate helped her down the hall toward the bedrooms. Edward watched the girl disappear into darkness, returning her small wave.

Kate moved back to the couches, sat again next to Edward, and looked at him for a time with her sparkling eyes, saying nothing. Finally she asked,

"Was that evil, Edward?"

"Mil—Kate, I don't know _what _that was."

"Ah, but that I can answer for you. It was but a small taste of what a vampire like yourself might experience. We are both of us blessed, Edward."

"How so?"

"What Bree just experienced is but a shadow of what more skilled ministrations can bring her, and that but a hint of what a vampire lucky enough to retain such human abilities can feel. I possess that gift, Edward, and so do you. Think of the fun we shall have!" Edward stared at her, smiling.

"Kate, I believe if I contemplate that possibility overmuch, I may well never leave your side again."

"Then don't."

"Carlisle—"

"Carlisle is a black-hearted fool who understands nothing more than death. All that was human in him died during the change. He erroneously assumed the same would be true of you, my priest."

"And you believe otherwise?"

Kate again left him to decipher only her smile.

Bella's eyes were wide. The mansion was not yet near. Edward had paused momentarily to glance at her and gauge her reaction.

"Am I boring you?" Bella laughed, shaking her head.

"No. God, no. This is great. It's like vampire porn. 'The Erotic Adventures of Edward, Chapter 1.' " Edward laughed at this.

"Four hundred years would add up to many chapters indeed, but the truth is that much of it would sound the same. Sex may not grow tiresome for those involved … at least, if they're good at it. But listening to stories about it only lasts so long."

"It's not even the sex, really. I know what that's like. It's the idea of you not knowing, I think," Bella said.

"The loss of innocence, yes. People often find that arousing."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Greatly."

"Did you sleep with Kate?"

"Not that night."

"But eventually?"

"Oh, yes."


	26. Chapter 26

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 26**

**No one**

For several months, Edward spent every waking moment of his time with Kate and Bree. It took little time for Kate to coax Edward into the fullness of his own sexuality, and evenings frequently began with feeding, perhaps a show, and ended in lengthy stretches of passion.

His early teachings came from Bree, and with Kate's guidance the two learned rapidly.

Bree took his virginity from him, gave him her own, in a bed of satin, Kate's soft whispers a soothing backdrop to the heat of passion, the heat of blood.

After this, their lovemaking was frequent, spontaneous, shared. Edward and Bree, Edward and Kate, Kate and Bree, the three together.

Bree would be a fledgling someday, Kate explained. Her body was young, yet, but the time was nearing.

Bree, for her part, was content for now with the ministrations of her vampire lovers.

Days blurred into weeks, weeks into months. Edward saw nothing of Carlisle, delved no further into the darkness that had held his soul for the past decade.

Mental, physical, spiritual, Kate was his teacher in all things, and found Edward a most willing pupil.

A year. Another. A third. When Kate brought Bree to darkness, Edward was there, watching like a proud father. The process was more difficult for her than it had been for Edward, and Kate explained that this was due to differences between the vampire strains.

There was pain, but Bree bore it, and in the end was nearly unchanged by the transformation. She gained strength, speed, the ability to see in the dark, but no evil touched her, and she did not lose her sexual abilities.

She remained their constant companion, a fledgling learning from her mistress, and from her friend.

They made quite the trio, strolling the streets of London after dark, dressed in the latest fashions, hunting as it pleased them.

There were events to attend. The theatre, the symphony, the opera. Time passed, as it does during the good times, in what seemed a blur.

In her third year of vampire life, Bree discovered the pleasures of coupling with her victims before she fed. This was a bittersweet occurrence.

Her time with both Edward and Kate became less frequent, much to their disappointment. She still lived with them, still enjoyed their company, but now hunted alone, and most of her lovemaking was with humans.

Simultaneously, this left more time for Edward and Kate to be alone together. They used it, growing ever more skilful in the pleasures they brought to one another.

Bree was a welcome addition when she wished to be, a companion otherwise.

More years. Five became ten, ten became twenty, twenty became forty. Carlisle was a distant memory.

Kate, Bree, they were reality. Edward's companions. He had come to love his immortal life with them, to cherish it more than he could have thought possible.

But in the forty-first years of his new life, Edward found these things he cherished, his entire world, shattered beyond repair.

It started in a grove of trees, under a full spring moon. Kate and Edward, walking in the park, talking quietly, warm from the kill. They entered a small grove, away from prying eyes. The glint in Edward's eyes had made Kate laugh.

"Someone will call the constable!"

"Let them." Skin against skin, lips at each other's necks, warmth flowing between them, growing to a fire. No one had called the constable.

When it was through, they lay in each other's arms, saying nothing. Kate stared at the moon. When she sighed, there was melancholy in it, to Edward's surprise.

"What is it, Kate?"

"Edward, sometimes I think I can see the future." Edward was unsure of how to respond.

Kate sighed again, put her forehead in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, kissed the skin there. At last he could take the silence no longer.

"What do you see?" No words, for a long time, and then Kate moved her head, rolled her weight on top of him so she could look into his eyes. There were tears in her own, a first from Kate.

He saw them drop, felt them land, cool on his cheeks. The moon reflected silver in the tracks on her face.

"Darkness, my love. All I see for us is darkness," Kate whispered, and putting her head to his chest, she wept.

Edward paused for a moment, took a deep breath. Bella glanced over at him.

"This is hard for you. I'm sorry, Edward. You don't have to tell it." Edward shook his head.

"No, it is best that I do. I have kept this story to myself for hundreds of years, and I think perhaps this is why it is still so painful. If I could have brought myself to talk about it, I might have been able to heal. Modern psychology seems to bear that theory out."

"Could Kate really tell the future?"

"She was certainly right in this instance. All there was for us, in the end, was darkness."

"What happened next?"

"Next? It's funny, in a way. What happened next was done to protect me. Ah, Bella, I was young. I was so very young. I had lived for over sixty mortal years, yes, but forty of those were vampire years. They pass in a blur, and contain fewer lessons. There was no death to deal with, aside from the victims. No sickness. No worrying about occupation or supporting a family. There was nothing to make me into a man.

"Kate knew this, I imagine; she knew how naive I was. Perhaps that is what made her love me. Kate's strain is prone to depression, particularly after long stretches of immortality. She was more than eight hundred years old when I met her. I believe that Bree and I became her anchors. Her reasons for living. She was terrified of what might happen to us, but equally terrified of pushing us away and being alone."

"What did she do?"

"She told me not to worry about it, to forget her words. I was confused. Upset. To be honest, I was frightened quite severely by this sudden change. I had never seen Kate weep. In truth, I had never seen her give in to a weakness of any sort. To see her so distraught was disturbing, though I did my best to comfort her. I held her, and she clung to me in a panic for a time. I whispered in her ear that I would make things right, that all would be well. Eventually she regained her composure."

"Did she explain?" Edward shook his head. His voice betrayed more frustration than sorrow.

"No. I attempted to learn more from her, but she would say nothing. She dismissed it as the emotional ramblings of a woman, and like a fool I accepted it. The calm, collected, unperturbed Kate I knew was returning, and I was glad for it. Relieved. I took her at her word. This was a momentary emotional outburst."

"But it wasn't."

"No. And looking back on it now, it is obvious. Her entire demeanour changed after that night. She knew that the end was coming, and she hid that knowledge to protect me. Ah, Bella, I loved her. I loved her as I love you, but I am so angry with her, to this very day. Furious. Why did she not explain? Combined, prepared, we might have prevented it. There might have been some other alternative."

"Sometimes people, even people who have been alive for hundreds of years, make mistakes, Edward." Edward nodded.

"Indeed. It is not the mistake that frustrates me. I have only grief for that. It is the knowledge that, if she were here right now and presented the same choices, she would come to the same decisions. She would make the same mistake."

"But she's not here, now. Something happened, Edward."

"Garret happened."

"Garret?"

"There were other vampires in London during the seventeenth century. Bree and I did not know, because Kate had never explained it to us, but there are rules among vampires. Laws. Kate was breaking them, and by extension, so were we.

"Normally, fledglings are in great danger if separated from their masters for any extended period of time. Even now, this is sometimes a problem. Rival vampires are likely to attempt to make an example of them. I was tolerated in my separation from Carlisle in part because his power was so immense even then that there was concern over what his reaction might be, and in part because of my lineage. _Eresh-Chen_, first child in a line of first children, dating back to see who was the source of all vampires.

"Traipsing around with Kate and Bree, two vampires not of my bloodline who had, it seemed, stolen me from my sire … this was not acceptable. Eventually, disapproval became dislike, and dislike became hate. Garret used this hate in an attempt to further his own political position among the local vampires. He made an example of Kate in a bid for power."

Bella looked out at the road ahead. Edward was not driving at his normal reckless speed, as the road did not have his full attention, but they still drew near to the mansion.

"Finish the story, Edward? I want to know how it ends." Edward nodded.

"There is little left to tell, to be honest. Six more months of happiness – forced, on Kate's part – before it all ended. I said before that I had never really had call to become a man, in the forty years I spent with Kate. I made up for that in one night. In one instant.

"When Garret kicked the door to our apartment in, Kate did not even flinch. She did not even look up, just continued to stare into the fire. I looked into her eyes and I saw great sadness there, and great fear. I also saw acceptance, and understood that Kate knew that her death had arrived. In that moment, Bella, I aged those forty years."


	27. Chapter 27

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 27**

**The end of her**

Edward was on his feet, startled. The door to the apartment had been blown inward, shattered and destroyed.

The hulking silhouette in the shadowy entrance did not move, only stared, pale blue eyes shining out at them.

Kate closed her eyes for a moment, touched a hand to her forehead, and turned her head to the door.

"Garret."

"Kate."

The vampire took a step forward, into the light, and surveyed them. He looked for all the world like a Viking in Englishman's clothing.

Tall, well over six feet, with long blonde hair and a heavy blonde beard, Garret's vampire nature only added to his already formidable presence.

He looked at them with an air that seemed almost detached. There was certainly no fear in him.

"I knew it would be you."

"Ah. Who else? It is time to pay for your transgressions, Kate. You must answer for what you've done, for thieving away the _Eresh-Chen _from his master. We will not stand for it any longer. You will release them, and come with me for judgment." Kate shook her head.

"I know your judgment already."

"That may be. You will come with me regardless. Your fledglings may leave. The one you stole from Carlisle will have his own judgment to face. The other will be … watched with great interest."

Edward took a step forward, meeting the eyes of the vampire in the doorway.

"We go nowhere without Kate."

"Edward …" Kate's voice was a whisper, the sadness behind it immeasurable.

"Mind your tongue, priest, lest you find it removed from your mouth."

"You have no right—"

"Fledgling, do you know the concept of seniority? I have lived for more than a thousand years. I have every right, if for no other reason than it will bring me pleasure to see this one punished for her crimes." At this Kate stirred, anger flashing in her eyes.

"Crimes? Against whom? I swore no allegiance to your covenant, Garret, or that of any other. I am bound by no rules but my own. Your seniority matters not to me, nor does Carlisle's, nor does Edward's. Eresh herself might give me orders and I would disobey as I see fit. I will not live by rules penned by the dead. _I will not!_"

Garret seemed unruffled by this. His expression was amused, detached, a man only passingly interested in what he was hearing.

"You've made that obvious, Kate. I would not be here otherwise."

"No. And you … you live by rules written by dead vampires who could not have foreseen these times. The old ones are all dead, Garret, or so disinterested in our affairs that they might as well be. Why do you cling still to their words? Why hold yourself to their useless laws?"

"_Sin challas est mura. Si mura vallas etruars_." Garret seemed to be reciting, as if the sentences had been drilled into him.

"I have read the scrolls, Garret. _Without law there is chaos. With chaos comes destruction. _It is due to weaklings like yourself that those words hold true."

For the first time, her words seemed to have an effect on Garret. He turned to Kate, gaze smouldering, a sneer on his lips.

"Weaklings …"

"Mark this, Garret. You will be undone. You will know fear, and you will remember, in those moments before the eternal sleep, what I have said to you. You will know your weakness, and you will die in shame. That is your curse."

"I have been cursed by many, Kate, in my years. Someday, perhaps, I will die. When I go down that black hallway, I will take pleasure in knowing that you went first." Garret moved forward swiftly, grinning, eyes aflame.

Bree shrieked something incoherent, and Edward leapt out in front of the charging vampire, grappled with him, and was appalled at the strength in those arms.

It was like wrestling iron. Kate screamed his name, the word a desperate plea. Garret made some noise that was halfway between a laugh and a snarl, grabbed for Edward's hair, and by it threw him across the room.

The back of Edward's head collided with the marble slabs of the fireplace with a flat, harsh cracking noise, and he felt himself moving as though slipping slowly down an incline.

He heard more screams now, Kate's, over and over, calling his name. Had Bree's voice joined in with hers? Edward couldn't tell.

It seemed difficult to think. Difficult to breathe. There was the clink of chains, but it was all so dim, so quiet, and so distant.

Could he hear other footsteps? He thought perhaps the room was flooding with vampires, disciples who had been waiting only for a command from Garret.

Edward wanted to move, wanted to help his beloved, but he could not seem to gain control of his limbs, and everything had grown so dark.

He slipped into this world of darkness, where nothing seemed to matter, and everything felt safe.

The blow would have shattered a mortal man's skull and sprayed its interior contents out across the marble.

Edward, no longer a mortal man, was left with nothing more than an hour of unconsciousness and a splitting headache upon awakening.

An hour, though, was too much time. Too much time by far. Kate was gone. Bree was gone. The apartment was dark, empty, abandoned; little more than shattered furniture and scrape marks against the walls were left to tell the story of what had happened.

Edward fled from it, stumbling through the pain in his head out into the night, into darkness.

There was no sign of the other vampires, no clue to where they had gone. Edward shut his eyes, trying to concentrate through the throbbing, trying to feel Kate's presence, as she had taught him to do.

There was nothing for him, nothing but the echo of her words, over and over again, in time with the waves of pain and nausea.

_Darkness, my love. All I see for us is darkness. _

Sick, frightened and helpless, Edward felt his legs buckle, felt the hard cobblestones cut his knees, felt hot tears scald his face.

He put his hands there, covering his eyes, and knelt in penitence, praying for salvation to a God in whom he no longer truly believed.

Edward was silent, reflecting, lost in his memories. He had recounted this final part of the tale in a voice that was listless, almost dead.

Bella understood. With pain came emotional detachment. It was a survival instinct, and one with which her days with Mike had made her quite familiar.

She felt vaguely ill. She knew where all this led. There was no redemption. There was only three hundred and fifty years of darkness, followed by her arrival, which in turn had become the catalyst for events that seemed likely to end with more blood, more death, more despair.

"Not your fault, Bella. Mine. Death and rebirth. With you I can be free, but as with anything else, there is a price I must pay first."

"How does this story end, Edward?"

"I do not know. It is still on-going. I can tell you how Kate's chapter ended, though not in great detail. I know from Carlisle's network of contacts that Kate was burned alive, chained to a pillar with brush heaped around her. Of Bree, I know not. The stories are confused … conflicting. Some said she died with her mistress. Some said she was able to escape, to flee into the night. I desperately hope for the latter, but I hold little faith in it.

"In either case, I could never bring myself to track down the truth. It would have been painful enough to learn for sure that she was dead, and I fear that the judgment in her eyes, should she be alive, would be even more unbearable."

"And what happened to you? To Garret?"

"To me? You know the answer there. Kate was gone. Bree was gone. Garret was more powerful than anything I had previously known, save Carlisle.

"And so it was Carlisle that I turned to."


	28. Chapter 28

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 28**

**Return**

Edward had not stood in front of the large stone dwelling that housed his father in nearly half a century. He could feel Carlisle here and, as ever, that presence disgusted him.

The throbbing in his head was distant now; it had faded away to an echo of pain over the course of the lengthy walk. His sire's mansion loomed before him, Golgotha, the place of death.

Summing up his courage, Edward walked up the path to the large double doors, rapped once, twice. There was no answer, but he felt the invitation as if on the breeze.

Come in, come in. He opened the doors, stepped into the light that burned not for Carlisle, but for appearance. Carlisle's quarters would be without light.

There, down the hall where the torches lay dark. Edward stood outside the doors to Carlisle's sanctuary, wondering what he might say to this creature whose evil he had abandoned. Wondering what vengeance might be exacted for this betrayal.

There was a low chuckle from somewhere beyond the doors, and they swung open before him. All inside was blackness, save the embers of a small fire just inside the doorway. When the voice came, it was from the far end of the hall.

"And so, the prodigal son returns. Come in, Edward."

"Carlisle. Father." Edward stepped into the darkness, and the doors shut behind him. The elder vampire laughed again.

"Oh, and now it's 'Father,' is it? How very delicious. Now that the lover is on the slab, and the dream is over, the fledgling returns to his sire."

Edward felt his heart shudder at this. He shut his eyes for a moment, spoke into the darkness.

"She is … dead, then?"

"Surely she must be, no? Garret is many things, but a procrastinator he is not."

"How much do you know? Could you not have stopped it?"

"Edward. You never gave me time to _teach _you! You never wanted to be my son, not after that moment of weakness in the graveyard, after you were accosted by that idiot Felix. The scrolls speak of many things, and one of them is this: the affairs of others are their own. Certainly, I could have interfered, but these are not my affairs. Your reluctance to be my son has made it so. What concern is any of this to me?"

"And so you did nothing." Carlisle laughed.

"My son, my son … why would I do else? Do we share a bond of love that I would come from on high to rescue your beloved? No. You have spurned me from the first. Now you come to me with accusations. I am not the guilty party, Edward. You have not earned the right for such salvation."

"But it was in your power to grant, as it is within your power to give me revenge."

"Many things are within my power. Light a candle, Edward."

Edward had no matches, and so used a branch from the fire. The light did little for the room, but he could see Carlisle's face now, the heavy eyebrows overshadowing eyes which gleamed with malefic humour.

Carlisle looked like a wolf as it gazes upon a herd of sheep. Edward found he preferred the darkness. Carlisle seemed to sense this, and the gleam of his eyes was joined by firelight reflecting from his grin.

"You will never be like me, Edward."

"No, father."

"And yet, some part of me is pleased with your return. A deal, Edward?"

"Go on."

"Be my fledgling. Be my servant. Be what you were supposed to be when I made you. Remain here with me, or wherever I may choose to go, until such time as you are of age. Perhaps in a handful of centuries, you will be ready. Some fledglings never leave their masters. My blood runs in you, though, and you are powerful … or will be.

"Now, though? Now you are weak, and in need of a master not so easily dispatched."

"What do I receive for this service?"

"Ah. Yes. The deal. My end of our little … bargain. Remain with me here, Edward, prove your loyalty, and perhaps I will look more kindly upon you. Perhaps I will see your plight with Garret in more sympathetic light."

"Perhaps? It seems an unbalanced arrangement, father."

"I do not think, my son that you are in a position to make any demands at this time. I will assuage your doubts, however. I am many things, and most of those are evil. Wicked. Hateful. I hold no love for any vampire. I hold no respect for the scrolls, short of how I may use them to my advantage.

"Garret and I are bound to come into conflict. I know of his foolish politics. He would oust all competition and gain control of London. I could leave, or simply ignore him, but I could be persuaded to take a more … active interest.

"Serve me now, Edward, and when that time comes I will give you not only Garret's head, but those of his entire line."

Edward was young, still gripped by mortal concepts like revenge. Still able to hate. He felt this hatred now, burning hot like something molten inside of him.

"Ah, son, such emotion! Garret has left you alive. Would you not give him the same courtesy?"

"There is nothing else left for me, without her, but my hate. Garret took from me everything I had. I would not."

"Then we have a deal?"

"We do, father." There was a moment of quiet as the two vampires surveyed each other. At last, Carlisle turned back to whatever lay on the desk, beyond the reach of the light.

"Put out the candle. There is a room for you in the west wing. I shall call upon you tomorrow."

Edward, as he would for centuries thereafter, did what he was told.

"And that is all there is, or nearly so. I could tell you lies. I could tell you that I worked for goodness, even in Carlisle's service, but that is hardly true. I've done many things that humans would consider evil for Carlisle, and I regret very few of them, beyond bringing Rose and Alice to him. I held my own goodness close. I would not tarnish Kate's memory by returning to my former ways.

"I was hated, greatly, by some for my continued existence after my transgressions with Kate. Carlisle's power protected me where hers could not, and in time, my own was more than adequate for the task. Of those vampires left that might be capable of bringing about my destruction, none care enough anymore to bother. The old hate is gone."

Bella stirred, stretched, felt the rush of air through her fingers. She should be freezing, driving in late November with the top down. The only cold she felt was internal.

"Garret?" she asked at last.

"Garret. Yes, Garret died badly. I was present for it, but I found that I took little real pleasure in his destruction. A certain … mortal need for revenge was served, but after that I had before me only endless years as Carlisle's servant.

"Kate's words proved true, though. Garret knew fear. He knew his weakness, and he died in shame. Carlisle had him bound and gagged, hung upside-down, so the blood would go to his head and keep him alive while his skin was flayed from his body and he was unmanned and disembowelled.

"Carlisle brought out his children, his fledglings. Garret had three of them. And in front of him, while he wept, Carlisle cut their heads from their bodies and burned them to ash. I was not sorry. All three had taken part in Kate's abduction.

"At the end, when Carlisle removed his gag, Garret could not even speak coherently. Terror, sorrow, and pain had combined to rob him of his senses. He wept and pleaded, some of the words in the vampire language that Carlisle has never allowed me to learn, and Carlisle did him a favour and cut his head from his body."

"Jesus …"

"It was something less than pretty. I watched from a distance, but I made sure Garret could see me. Oh, I made very sure of that. I am not proud of these things, Bella, but I do not regret them, either."

Bella was quiet for a moment, thinking the story over in her mind. What would it be like if someone swooped in and took Edward from her now? How could she go on? Edward smiled at this. They were very near the mansion now.

"Bella, there is no one left to do so. Carlisle has known for many years now that the time of my leaving was imminent. He does not have to like it, but he will permit it."

To Bella, this was somehow little comfort.


	29. Chapter 29

**I don't own anything**

**Chapter 29**

**Get back up**

They rounded a corner, and the mansion came into view. Bella felt a sudden surge of adrenaline, followed by a slow, crawling dread. Edward grimaced.

At the end of the driveway, nearly hidden in shadow, stood a massive black figure that could only be Carlisle.

The Ferrari moved up the gradual slope of the long hill, and the creature's face came into the headlights.

The light seemed to shy away from him, illuminating his features only grudgingly.

Bella felt locked in place, unable to move. Edward shut off the car, and Carlisle was plunged once again into darkness.

"I have awaited your arrival, my son." Carlisle's voice was less heard than felt, like slugs crawling through Bella's head.

"Have you, father? I thought I had fulfilled my duties for the evening."

"Yes. Yes, well enough. There is much we must talk about."

"It would appear so. You are aware of Rosalie's transgression, then?"

"I was aware while it happened, Edward. You know this." Edward nodded.

"With respect, father, may we talk in private?"

"You would not expose your pretty fledgling to me any more than is necessary, would you, Edward? Afraid of corruption, perhaps?" Edward said nothing.

Carlisle smiled, fangs reflecting silver-white moonlight from amidst the shadow of his face. His eyes burned red, that same dark humour behind them.

"Very well. If your daughter, or lover, or whatever it is you've made of her, can move, she is free to do so."

Bella realized that this creature was revelling in her obvious fear, and it was this, more than anything else, that gave her the strength to get up.

She moved on wooden legs away from the door, wanting to glance back at Edward, afraid to do so.

As she passed behind Carlisle, she felt his mind touch hers once, like the dirty groping fingers of a licentious old man. The feeling reminded her very much of her time working clients for Mike, and her instincts lashed out, angry, against it.

Carlisle turned casually toward her, and with what seemed no more than a flick of his wrist, grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around to face him.

The force was immense, nearly dislocating the joint and Bella hissed at the pain that lanced through her.

Carlisle's touch revolted her, burned into her skin through the thin leather jacket like hot iron.

The sight of his eyes drained her of anger, left only a numb fear unlike anything she had felt before.

Primitive, primeval, beyond consciousness. She wanted to weep, to cry out, to do anything but look at this thing before her.

"Do not forget whose blood runs in your veins, my dear, impudent little bitch. Your lover may defy me, on occasion. He has earned that right through time and service. You have not."

"Father …" Edward's voice was strained, not with fear this time, Bella thought, but with something beyond loathing.

Bella's vision began to swim, and she realized she had not taken a breath since Carlisle had laid his hand upon her. She tried now, and found she could not.

Her eyes, her lungs, were locked by Carlisle's gaze. Adrenaline coursed through her body, her heart beating furiously, but to no avail. The world began to go grey, and Bella felt her legs weakening.

"If you kill her, Carlisle, be prepared to kill me as well. I shall surely attempt to do so to you." Edward's voice held no tension, now, only a cold, deadly seriousness.

At this, Carlisle grinned, and took his eyes away from Bella. She slumped to the gravel, gasping for breath, head throbbing sickly. Edward made to help her up, and Carlisle put a hand out, restraining him.

"Come, my son. Walk with me. Bella is _Eresh-Chen_, now. She can find her way to her feet on her own." He walked toward the edge of the grounds, where grass met forest, as if a refusal were impossible.

Edward cast a glance at Bella, and she nodded, motioning him away. She had drawn herself into something of a sitting position, propped up on her arms, legs stretched out to her side.

She thought she would very soon be sick, and she didn't want Edward to see it. His jaw clenched momentarily, his hate for Carlisle clearly visible on his face.

Then it was gone, replaced with that same calm that she had seen so many times before. He nodded, turned and followed his father.

When they were safely out of sight, Bella struggled to her feet. She managed Bella steps, head still thudding, enough to lean against the wall of the mansion's garage as she coughed and dry-heaved.

Her body had already absorbed the night's blood, and after a few more attempts, it gave up trying to expel what wasn't there.

Bella leaned against the wall for a few moments longer, shuddering, waiting for the awful, spinning blackness at the edges of her vision to clear.

In time, it did, and she shuffled her way into the mansion.


	30. Chapter 30

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 30**

**A Tooth for a Tooth**

The mansion. The next evening.

Bella was used to this new style of waking, now. Instantly alert, instantly aware.

She stretched, ran a hand through her hair, and sat up, looking around the empty room.

Edward had not returned before sleep had taken her the night before, and he was not here now. The house had been devoid of life when she had entered it the previous evenings.

Rose's room was dark and empty. No noise came from the cell in the basement. Bella had made her way to the room she shared with Edward, exhausted and shaken from her encounter with Carlisle, and promptly collapsed into unconsciousness.

A shower seemed like a good way of prolonging the time before she would have to leave the room and face the dark things growing outside.

Bella sighed, padded her way to the bathroom on bare feet, and lost herself for a time in torrents of warm water.

One of the televisions downstairs was on. She could hear it as she left the bathroom.

Bella pulled on clothes, ran a brush through her hair, and departed. She descended the arching staircase and turned into the room she had come to think of as the media centre.

Large televisions, three of them, each at least four feet tall, lined one wall. Discreet wooden units housed their audio components. Couches were arranged in front of the screens.

Most of the clutter that seemed to choke the rest of the mansion was missing from this room, perhaps because it was one of the few areas of the building that received frequent use.

Edward reclined on one of the couches, and his presence confirmed that it was Rose who sat on another. Bella found it unlikely he would tolerate Rosalie, particularly given recent events. As if to confirm this, Rose turned to her and spoke.

"We were wondering if you were ever going to wake up." She tried for a smile, managed something like one, and then looked away.

Bella sat down next to Edward, who adjusted his position to allow her to recline against his chest. He said nothing.

"It was a long night," Bella said.

"Tell me about it." Rose sighed, shook her head.

"I'm sorry, Rose. For whatever that's worth." Rose offered her another smile, sad, but more sincere than the last.

"I know. We need to talk about it, don't we?" she asked. Edward nodded. Bella felt the movement. Rose bit her lip, glanced at the TV, and muted it.

"Where do we start?" Bella questioned. Rose shrugged. Edward sighed.

"Let's begin with a lesson on vampire biology," he said.

"How do you feel right now, Rose?"

"Exhausted," Rose admitted, after a moment. Edward nodded.

"Indeed. Certainly not in any shape to undergo the rigors of finishing the process that was started last night. In fact, your blood is so weakened at the moment that the process would not even advance. Rosalie is, of course, unaware of this, but at best Tanya will remain a half-vampire for decades or centuries." Bella turned her head up to glance at Edward.

"Why?"

"Rose's blood needs time to rejuvenate. But to remain a half-vampire, Tanya needs periodic infusions of that blood.

Before Rose could strengthen enough to complete Tanya's transformation, she will either have to give the girl blood in order to keep her a half-vampire, or allow her to revert.

"If she allows the latter, then when she again tries to make Tanya into a vampire, it will be to the same result. Rose will not be prepared to create a fledgling for hundreds of years yet." Rose rolled her eyes.

"Great."

"Such is the nature of our particular strain. This, of course, is the least of our current problems. It is just the most easily discussed. There are other things of which we need to speak, Rose."

The blonde-haired vampire on the couch across from them was quiet for a long time. Finally she said,

"I've known Rosalie for a long time. There, I said it. I've never said her name before. Rosalie. I _hate _that name. I hated it before she even existed. But I knew her before she existed. She … Carlisle didn't create her, exactly. He just woke her up. She was just a dream before that; something that only came occasionally, and brought nightmares where I did awful things.

"I hated those dreams. Not because they were frightening, or awful, but because in the moments right after I woke up, I could feel her. I could understand the appeal. Christ, I'd wake up totally fucking aroused, like a part of me I couldn't feel when I was awake not only enjoyed the things in those dreams, but _got off _on them.

"The pain of the blood, Carlisle's blood … it brought her out. It spoke to her like nothing I had ever allowed into my life. Once she woke up, she didn't want to go back. She can't take over … not yet. She has to wait until I'm asleep. But she can keep me out for longer and longer each time, and she can let me back in whenever she wants. She's stronger than I am. She spends more and more time with my body. Eventually, what happens? I wake up next to a half-vampire I don't even know, and find out that it's my blood that did it.

"So that's when I really knew. This body is Rosalie's. I'm just along for the ride until she beats me back completely. Then I'll be the dream, I guess. Maybe I can give _her _nightmares."

Bella opened her mouth to say something, and could think of nothing to say. Rose wasn't telling them anything they didn't already know. She was simply admitting the truth to herself. Rose was crying now, unable to look at them.

"When you first told me about Bella, Edward, you said you thought you would stay here maybe twenty years. Twenty years? I'm not sure you'll last another twenty days. I could never read people like you could, and I could _never _read you … but I've been able to all the time for the last few weeks. Escape. Escape. It's like a flashing neon sign in your head.

"And I can't even b—bring myself to hate you for it. Either of you. It's not your fault, and I know it, and that makes it so hard." Edward stirred.

Bella shifted her weight, allowing him to sit up. He looked at Rose and when he spoke, his voice retained its nearly ever-present calm, but there was deep sympathy in it, and an almost heart-breaking sadness.

"A hundred and twenty years, Rose. It comes and goes like the wind, and I hate myself for all of this, even if you cannot."

"Don't." Edward shrugged. _It can't be helped. _

"I don't want her to win, Edward, but she's going to." Bella spoke up.

"Does she have to? Is there any other way?" Edward answered her.

"I don't know, Bella. We have little time to find out."

"Why?"

"There are two things eating away from our time here, my own desire to leave not included. The first is Tanya. She will wake, soon, and that will force a decision on her fate. A minor matter, perhaps. Perhaps not. The second is Carlisle, who has instructed me of his desires. He wants us gone, Bella, the sooner the better. As Rose said, we will not be here another twenty days, but not because of any desire on my part. He says he has grown tired of me. As for Rosalie, Tanya, Alice—he has told me that when we leave, we must not take them with us."

Rose made a quiet sobbing noise. She was not looking at them, was instead watching the silent images on the television.

"What if you killed Carlisle?" Bella stood up, paced back and forth a few times, then looked at Edward.

He raised his eyebrows, tilted his head slightly, and said nothing.

"I'm serious. What would happen to you? To Rose? To Alice and Tanya and me?"

"This is an unwise avenue of discussion."

"Is he really that powerful? Is it impossible?"

"That and more. Carlisle has studied long in vampire lore. He is very aware of his capabilities, and has pushed those boundaries further than perhaps any other living vampire. He revealed a rather startling talent to me last night, unwittingly I think, when he caught your breath. I knew that in close proximity, his power over others' minds was significant, but I did not know that he could allow you full reign of your thoughts while controlling otherwise involuntary functions. I do not know how to do that, do not know how he did it, and do not know how to fight it."

"Okay, but suppose somehow he died. We can't kill him. Fine. But say tomorrow Carlisle … I don't know … gets hit with a nuclear bomb and is turned to ashes. What would happen to us?"

"Us. Very well, Bella. On a purely speculative basis – as what you speak of is simply not a possibility for a wide variety of reasons – I think I can answer that. What happens when the head of a line dies? It depends on the age of his children, and the type of vampire.

"If you kill an Eresh vampire, his children may be significantly weakened. Certainly any half-vampire he has created will revert to human form. Full vampires may or may not revert, depending on the amount of time that has passed since the change. If someone killed me, Bella, you would revert to human form in a matter of weeks. You've not been changed nearly long enough for it to 'stick,' so to speak.

"If someone, somehow, killed Carlisle, the effects would be less drastic. Rose and I have made the change completely and will not revert. Alice might revert, but I have no way of knowing if her mind would return with her humanity, and at this point the physical changes may not completely fade. It is possible that she would be very strong and very fast, for a human being … comparable perhaps to one of the other vampire strains. There would be no effect on Tanya, or on you, if Carlisle were killed.

"So, continuing this interesting but, unfortunately, rather useless line of thought, if Carlisle was killed, it would have little effect on the present situation, beyond possibly allowing Tanya the opportunity to return to her normal life, since he would no longer consider her his property."

Bella watched him, frustrated, knowing that he would not lie to her, but unwilling to believe that defeating Carlisle was not within some realm of possibility. No guarantees on Rose, Edward had said, but would it not at least give them more time to work on helping her rid herself of Rosalie?

"It would indeed." Edward had picked up her thoughts.

"But that in itself is not a guarantee, and an attempt on Carlisle's life would assuredly lead only to the cessation of our own. If Karma exists, I've been living on borrowed time since Kate … died. But I could not bring myself to sacrifice your life so needlessly."

"We have to do something, Edward."

"Yes, we do, but the choice is not ours, Bella. We have three options. The first is the easiest, at least for us: we leave. Rose, Alice, and Tanya stay. The second: we stay for as long as possible, against Carlisle's will. Rose is eventually engulfed by Rosalie; Tanya is kept in a state of half-vampirism indefinitely and is likely warped by Rosalie's teachings; Alice continues her mad existence; and eventually Carlisle's evil drives me away. In the interim, there will be little other than despair, and the end result is no different from the first option.

"Then there is the third …" Rose had turned to listen to Edward again, and her eyes said she knew what he was to say. Edward grimaced, looked at his sister with deep, sad eyes, and continued.

"The third is a possibility that Carlisle must know is in consideration. He has known me for too long not to guess that I would offer my sister this choice: if she wishes, she and Alice will die by my hand. That is the third option. Had Carlisle expressly forbid it last night, I would have acceded. He did not. He told me only that he wished that they remain here. He has left me to make my own decision on how to interpret that."

Rose's eyes were hard and glassy, but if more sobbing threatened, she held it at bay. She met Edward's gaze, her mouth a thin, white line. Bella looked between both of them, and at last shook her head.

"No. That's crazy. There's a fourth alternative, whether you want to admit it or not, Edward. The fourth is that we attempt the impossible and try to kill him. We have to!" It was Rose who spoke.

"Don't be ridiculous, Bella. I'm going to die. Pick any scenario, and at the end of it, I still die. I'd rather not go with your life, and Edward's, on my conscience."

"But if he dies, maybe Rosalie will …"

"Disappear? I told you, Bella. I've known Rosalie for a very long time now. Carlisle woke her up, yes, but she doesn't intend to be put back to sleep. If I believed there was the _slightest _chance of that, I might agree with you, but even then probably not. So put it out of your head, now. You're going to get yourself killed talking like that." Edward waved his hand, dismissing the idea.

"Carlisle knows the difference between threat and idle speculation. If anything, hearing Bella speak in this manner would only amuse him. Were you to attempt to kill him, Bella, I do not think he would be particularly upset with you. He would likely welcome the entertainment. He would destroy you, of course, but he would do it smiling.

"We cannot fight him, and even if we could, even if we pulled off the miraculous, what would be the purpose? The inevitable end for those we would be trying to save does not change. It is too much risk for no reward."

"Well that's fucking great. I hate _all _of the choices, Edward." Bella was beyond anger. Beyond tears.

Her voice was hollow, exasperated, depleted of hope Rose gave her a look of sympathetic commiseration, as if Bella was the true victim.

"I'm not fond of any of them myself. I'm not entirely certain which I would choose, if the choice were mine. It is not. Rose knows, has known for decades, which it is not. The choice lies with her, and I will abide by her decision, even if she chooses your fourth scenario." Rose sighed, shut her eyes, and leaned back against the couch.

Tears, tinged pink with blood, slipped down her face, but she did not lose her composure.

After a long minute in which Bella felt as if her own heart had ceased to beat, Rose looked up at the ceiling, and then over at Edward.

Her face was hard, and rage danced behind her eyes. Rage at them? Rage at Carlisle? Rage at the situation? Bella could not tell.

"I want a promise."

"Anything Rose."

"Take Tanya with you. Don't leave her behind. Don't leave her here for him. I know it goes against what he asked, but I can't do that. She's just a human. Promise me you'll take her and get her home. You can make her forget. Will you promise?"

"You have my word, Rose."

"Good. Then I want you to kill me. I'd rather you than that bitch who shares this body. Kill me, and kill Alice, and when Carlisle rages, spit in his fucking face and tell him it's from me."


	31. Chapter 31

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 31**

**Meeting Tan**

It had been twenty minutes since Rose had departed, and Bella still felt numb. There had been little more conversation after Rose's choice. She had asked Edward when, and he had said only,

"Not yet." Rose had nodded, and left to hunt. The expression on her face was dark and distant, and Bella did not envy whomever Rose might choose as a victim.

Edward sighed, stood, turned off the television. He turned to Bella, his face set in its typical expression.

"Hungry?"

"Starving," Bella admitted. "But I think if I drink right now, it'll overwhelm me. I'd never be able to stop crying. How can it be like this, Edward? Why aren't there more choices?"

"Carlisle makes it so. His age, his power, his will. There is something I neglected to mention to Rose, something that makes me willing to risk his wrath and do as she asks. He believes he has found a way to make more children."

"I don't understand," Bella said. Edward was quiet for a moment, organizing his thoughts. At last he continued.

"Eresh blood is too weak to make fledglings for a very long time, and then within a century or two, it becomes too strong. The power of the blood makes our offspring go mad, as Rose and Alice have. Another few decades, and the fledglings begin simply dying from shock.

"Through great study, and having watched your progression, Carlisle believes he has learned how to dilute his blood and, by doling it out in minute increments over a lengthy period of time, create a sane fledgling.

"I left this out because Rose does not need to know. It is bad enough that Rosalie will engulf her, let alone that she someday will become useless to Carlisle entirely. When that happens, Carlisle will butcher Rose, Alice, and Tanya without a second thought. Whatever death I can offer Rose will be much better than anything Carlisle might deliver."

"God, Edward. How can you talk about this? How can you be this … this …"

"This cold? I have been contemplating it for decades, Bella, as I have said. Rose's fate is of great importance to me. I wish I could provide her with more choices. I wish I could save her, but I don't know how. Every emotional fibre of my being screams against the decisions that are being made here. But I don't know what else to do.

"The young man whose body I occupy is still here, somewhere, Bella. Vampires do not age as human beings do, and the hot blood of youth is still very close to the surface in me. I simply have centuries of practice controlling it. That young man rages against this. He would try your impossible deed, if I let him.

"I have first-hand experience, awful beyond description, that vampires of my age and power can be killed easily by their elders. Kate's destruction came at the hands of a vampire only a few hundred years her senior and that vampire lived only ten more years before Carlisle destroyed him. It has been centuries since those events, and Carlisle has only grown more powerful. If we challenge him, we will die."

Bella opened her mouth to reply to this, when a scream, long and wailing, echoed from somewhere below them. She shut her mouth with a snap, eyes wide, looking at the floor.

"Tanya awakens," said Edward.

It was Bella who went down to see the girl. She had asked to, and Edward had simply held his palms up to the air. _Be my guest_.

Bella wondered if sometimes he understood her motivations better than she did herself. Bella did not know why she needed to talk to this half-vampire woman whom she had never met.

Bella only knew that it felt right, and after a life guided mainly by instinct, she had learned to trust her feelings.

She knew the girl could hear her footsteps, coming down the long stone staircase. She could sense a sudden panic, could hear already rushed breathing speed to a near hysterical pace. She spoke into the darkness:

"I'm not going to hurt you, Tanya." The girl's panic seemed to break, and she found her voice, questions bubbling out of her like water.

"Who are you? Where am I? What's happening to me? Where am I? Help me! Where are you? You have to help me!"

Bella's eyes were better than a human's now, and even in the dark she could see the bars of the cell, could see the girl behind them, on her knees, shuddering.

Tanya was wearing a pair of jeans and a loose, brightly-coloured blouse. No socks, no shoes.

Bella tried to remember waking up in that cell. Only a few weeks ago. It seemed forever.

"I'm going to light a candle. There's one down here. Everything's going to be okay. You're fine, and I'm here to help. Try to relax, if you can. It will be better for you." Tanya lapsed into gulping, panicky breaths, staring out into the darkness.

Only half-vampire, her vision was not as good as Bella's. There was a candle on a small table by the cell, a box of matches sitting beside it. Bella struck one, and held it to the wick.

The flame glowed and flickered, casting enough light that Tanya was able to pinpoint Bella's whereabouts. She scurried down the length of the bars, pressed up against them, held her hand out, and cried,

"Help me! Help me!" Bella sat on the floor and extended her hand. Tanya gripped it tightly, enough so that the pressure would have been painful, if Bella were still human.

"Tanya. It's okay. You're okay. You're not hurt."

"I feel _wrong_. Help me!" Bella laughed a bit at that.

"Yeah, I imagine you do. Let me guess: right now you can hear better than you ever could before, and see better in this light than you should be able. Am I right?"

"Yes. I … yes."

"Okay. Look … I've been through this, and I'm okay. You're okay too, I promise. Can you take the facts straight, Tanya?" Her matter-of-fact tone was working.

Tanya closed her eyes and, with visible effort, forced herself to breathe deeply, to get control of herself. Her grip on Bella's hand loosened slightly.

"Just tell me," She said after a moment.

"How much do you remember?"

"I don't know. I was … I was at the club. Some Goth chick kept smiling at me, and I couldn't stop staring at her. Look, I'm not normally into that, okay? I couldn't help it. I remember finally getting up to go talk to her … and then I woke up in this fucking hole." Bella nodded, and said,

"Okay, well, here it comes. When you don't believe it, I'll prove it to you. But I'll tell you first. Last night you came home with a vampire named Rosalie. You uh … hooked up with her, and she bit you, and drank a lot of your blood. Normally you'd either die, or wake up somewhere and not remember anything, but she decided to give you some of her blood in return. Since she didn't drain you all the way, you're not completely a vampire yet, but you're about halfway there. After that it gets … complicated."

The girl was silent for a long time. Her response, when it came, didn't surprise Bella much.

"What?"

"I know it sounds hard to believe …"

"Hard to believe?" Tanya gave a tiny, hysterical laugh. "Hard to fucking believe? I pass out somewhere, and I wake up in a fucking prison, and some random chick comes down and tells me that I'm in some fucking Brad Pitt movie, and it's only 'hard to believe'? _Dios _… this is fucking impossible!"

"It's not impossible. Trust me." Tanya pulled her hand from Bella's and gripped the bars, stared out at her, furious.

"Listen, you crazy bitch, I don't care who you are. I don't care what the fuck hallucinations you're having. Tell me where the fuck I am, and then let me go. Right now."

Bella felt anger for a moment, and forced herself to react as Edward would. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, they were calm.

"Tanya …"

"Tan. Everyone calls me Tan."

"Tan. Get up. Go look in that mirror on the wall. You couldn't see it in the dark, but I know from experience that the candle's more light than your eyes need, now. Go look, and tell me how hard it is to believe."

Tan stared at her for a moment, then curled her lip in defiance and stood up. She took Bella quick strides over to the mirror and peered into it. Her reaction was immediate, and very similar to what Bella's had been. She flinched, stumbled, fell backwards, crying out:

"Jesus!" What had Edward said? _Jesus has nothing to do with this_.

"I'm sorry, Tan." Bella watched as Tan covered her face with her hands and wept.


	32. Chapter 32

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 32**

**Goodbye friend**

"I'm dreaming." Tan was staring at Bella with horrified eyes. Bella had not moved, was still sitting Indian-style on the cold stone floor. She shook her head.

"No."

"Then I'm insane. Locked up somewhere. Hallucinating. Someone gave me some bad acid. _Something _…"

"No."

"How can you say 'No'? This shit is not possible."

"I sometimes find it hard to believe, myself. I've only been a vampire for a few days, and I was human less than a month ago. You grow accustomed to it pretty quickly, though."

"Somebody wake me up," Tan moaned. Bella shrugged.

"Okay. I don't really care whether you accept this or not, right now. How about this? At least play along. It will make things easier in the long run." Tan sighed, shrugged, and said,

"Fine. You're a vampire. I'm a vampire, too, I guess? What do we do now?"

"Do you want to get out of the cell? I can take you upstairs to meet the others … or Edward, at least."

"Who's Edward?"

"Edward and the girl, who made you, Rosalie, were made by the same vampire. If you follow the whole vampire lineage thing, I guess he's something like your uncle." Tan grimaced.

"If I pretend to believe you, will you let me out of here?"

"You have to promise me a few things."

"Like?"

"Like first, you're not going to bolt out the door the moment I open it. You wouldn't make it past me, and you definitely wouldn't make it out of the mansion. Edward would know what you were doing before you got up the steps. Even if you did get outside, you'd have to deal with Alice, and I think she'd probably kill you. So when I open the bars, let's stay calm, okay?"

"I can do that, I guess."

"Good. Second, try to keep an open mind. I know how hard that is … believe me, I know. Try to at least give what you're seeing and hearing a chance, before shutting it all out."

"I … okay, I'll try." Tan didn't sound like she held much faith in herself on this point, but at least she had regained some of her composure.

Bella produced the key Edward had given her, unlatched the door, and opened it.

"Okay. Let's go upstairs."

It was evident to Bella, simply by the expression on Tan's face, that she was no more accustomed to such opulence than Bella had been.

Tan seemed unable to decide what to look at first, and was moving her head about in quick motions, like a bird, taking it all in.

"Interesting, huh?" Bella was walking slightly behind Tan, letting the girl take her own meandering course through the first floor's many interlocking rooms.

"It's incredible." There was silence for a time, as they walked. Eventually, Tan spoke again. "So … you said the girl I met in the bar was Rosalie, right?"

"Yes, her name is Rosalie."

"Who are you?" Bella laughed. She'd forgotten to introduce herself. "My name's Bella."

"Do you live here?"

"I do now, yes. For the time being, anyway. Like I said before, I'm pretty new to all of this myself."

"Did Rosalie do this to you, too?" Bella suppressed a shudder.

"No. Rosalie is, well … it's complicated. Rosalie is Edward's sister, so to speak—sister vampire anyway; the same person made both of them. She and Edward, and another girl, Alice, were created by the elder vampire who lives in the other wing of the mansion. His name's Carlisle, and if you never meet him, then consider yourself lucky.

"Edward created me, but I'm not really his daughter. More like his girlfriend or wife, I guess. Like I said: complicated." Tan said nothing.

She glanced briefly at Bella, and the expression spoke volumes about her scepticism.

"I know you don't believe me, Tan. Just … let's go on, okay? Maybe Edward can convince you." Tan shrugged.

"Don't get your hopes up."

Edward was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Bella lead Tan back to the media room.

"We might as well wait here for him. You can watch TV or something."

"I want to get out of here."

"We can't, yet. You need to talk to Edward first. Trust me."

"Why?" Bella opened her mouth to explain, but before she could, they were interrupted.

The mansion's front door opened, closed, latched. Footsteps in the hall, growing louder, coming toward them.

Bella turned, expecting Edward. She was greeted instead by a nightmare.

Rosalie. It had to be Rosalie. She was standing in the doorway, drenched in blood. The red liquid coated her face, her neck, the collar and upper buttons of her blouse. Her hair was tousled. Her eyes burned like embers.

"What are you doing in this room, with _my _child?" Rosalie's voice was calm, but her expression bore malice beyond anything Bella had thought possible.

She leaned her weight on one hand, resting on the door frame. Her fingernails made repeated clicks against the bevelled wood. Bella breathed deeply, steeled herself, met Rosalie's gaze and held it.

"Talking."

"If I wanted you talking with her, I would have given you my permission."

"You weren't around. Your better half went out hunting." Rosalie retained her composure, but her lip curled up at this. She glared at Bella for a moment, and then her lips formed a smile. Her eyes still held nothing but hate.

"The woman you're referring to is gone. She gave up. She let me in. First time in my life I haven't had to wait for the stupid bitch to go to sleep to take over. She just … gave up. It was marvellous. She gave me control, and that tells me everything. I know it, and she knows it: I _am _the better half."

Bella opened her mouth to reply to this, and Rosalie held up her hand.

"Save it. Rose's stupid and scatter-brained and she doesn't remember anything about me, but I remember _lots _of things from her time in this body. Like what Edward's planning. His little parting gift to his sisters. I know all about your little plot: the priest and the prostitute, safe and happy and away. I know what Edward has planned for me and Alice.

"But oh, Bella, he doesn't know what I have planned for you!"

Without further warning, Rosalie sprung forward into the room, moving at the same uncanny speed that Bella had seen before, in the forest.

Tan shrieked something incoherent, terror in her voice. Bella felt adrenaline flood her body, felt herself springing to her feet as if propelled by some outside force.

She shoved the sofa at Rosalie and backed away, holding her hands up. Her hip bumped an end table, and she put it between herself and her oncoming attacker.

Rosalie vaulted the sofa with ease, came to rest on the carpet in front of it, and leapt again in one fluid motion. Her timing was nearly perfect, and Bella was only able to dodge out of the way by fractions of a second.

Rosalie hit the hard oak end table with the full force of her weight, and it shattered under the impact, vomiting pieces of itself in a spray around the room.

Bella dodged flying debris and moved behind the couch, looking for escape. The door led to the hall, but then what? Rosalie would catch her before she reached the mansion's entrance. The other vampire, the woman who shared the body with someone Bella considered a friend, almost a sister, was back on her feet and raving.

"You weak, stupid, useless whore! Where is your protector? Your lover? Your _Superman_? He is with Carlisle. Carlisle called to him, and he went, and left you helpless. I'm going to bring Carlisle your heart on a plate, and he'll laugh and laugh, and there's nothing Edward will be able to do about it!"

"Rosalie, Rosalie, wait! You don't have to do this. It doesn't have to be like that!" Bella heard herself speaking, heard the fear in her voice, and could accept it. It was the tone that made her hate herself.

The pleading tone sounded like old memories, like her time with Mike, like empty despair.

This situation was out of Bella's control and there was no hope for salvation. Edward was not here to swoop in and save her.

Rosalie snarled, racing around one edge of the couch. Bella moved swiftly to the other, keeping the sofa between herself and Rosalie's claws, hooked into talons and ready to tear at flesh.

Her foot landed on something: a table leg. It rolled, and Bella was unable to cope with the sudden shift in balance. She stumbled backward, fell to the carpet and landed on her back with a thud.

The plush softness of the material seemed somehow obscene in light of the situation. Rosalie howled in triumph and flung herself again into the air, so fast that Bella could barely track her movement.

It was too late to roll, too late to dodge, too late to do anything. Time seemed to stretch out. Rosalie was in the air above her, a vision of death and hate and horror unlike any Bella had ever beheld.

Bella's hands scrabbled at her sides, looking for something, anything. Her hands touched something cylindrical, grabbed it in a panic, and brought it in front of her.

The table leg. Twelve inches long, three in diameter, the leg had splintered into a sharp point when the table had disintegrated. Bella held it out against the oncoming impact in desperation. Rosalie's eyes flared wide in surprise just before she landed.

The sound the piece of oak made as it entered Rosalie's breastplate was indescribable. Splitting flesh, cleaving through bone, it pierced her body, the force of her landing driving it further and further in.

Bella felt a sudden liquid warmth gush across her hands. She shoved out and up, flipping the girl over on her back.

Rosalie somersaulted, flailed in the air, and crashed to the floor on her back. Bella rolled away, blood on her hands, her clothes, the carpet, everywhere.

Rosalie was making strangled choking noises, clawing at the stake in her chest, unable to get a decent handhold through the blood and the pain. She writhed on the floor, unable to lie flat.

The point of the table leg held her back in an arched position. She screamed, and the scream became wet and strained, filling the air with red mist. Then she fell back again and was still.

Bella lay on the ground, waiting for her limbs to stop shaking. It seemed an eternity but was in truth only moments. She pushed herself to a sitting position and looked at the body on the floor in front of her.

She was vaguely aware of Tan's presence beside her. The half-vampire spoke, her voice taut and breathy with tension.

"Holy shit!" The body on the floor jerked at this sound, arms flailing, and clawed at the entertainment centre to its left. Rosalie's nails dug into the wood, splintering it.

With an effort, she hauled herself upward, leaning against the wall, coughing blood. She brought her feet around and slumped into a sitting position, leaning against the cabinet, looking at the stake in her chest.

"Oh, God," Bella moaned. She scrambled backward on her hands, like a crab, away from the figure. At this, the girl's head jerked upward. Her eyes locked with Bella's. Not Rosalie's eyes, Bella realized. Rose's.

"Oh, _God_!" Bella cried. "Oh, no! Rose …" She crawled back toward Rose.

The wood had pierced the lower part of Rose's breastplate, traveling at an upward path and emerging just to the left of her spine, some six inches above the spot it had entered.

Not knowing what else to do, Bella grasped at the stake and began to tug, trying to pull it from her friend's body. Rose regarded her calmly, opened her mouth, tried to talk. A crimson bubble formed, burst at her lips, and the words came.

"Bella. Bella, stop. It hurts. Please stop."

Bella stopped, looked at Rose, tried to say something that would make up for what she had done, and instead burst into tears. Rose took her hand.

"Its okay, Bella. Thank you. She's gone. She's dead, Bella. You killed her. Thank you. I'm dying too, I guess, but that's okay. I told you: I was going to die anyway." Bella was making whimpering sounds, between her sobs.

She wanted words to come. She wanted to apologize, to take it back somehow. Her throat seemed incapable of forming articulate sound.

She pressed her forehead against Rose's, tilted it up, pressed her lips against the bridge of Rose's nose.

"Sisters." Rose's voice was weakening. She turned her head; coughed blood again, looked at Bella in apology. Bella reached out and smoothed Rose's hair away from her eyes.

"It's not so bad. It's all right. I don't even feel it anymore. I'm all numb. It's not so bad, Bella. It's not so bad, Edward." Rose's eyes moved away from Bella, focused on a point behind her.

Edward stood in the doorway, motionless. His expression was calm, almost peaceful, but there were tears in his eyes.

"Is it not, Rose?" he asked.

"No. Edward?"

"Yes."

"Thank you … for being my friend for all these years. You gave me more than I deserved."

"Rose. My sister, you deserve far more than anything I could ever have given." Rose closed her eyes for a moment, opened them, and looked back at Bella. Her voice was little more than the movement of air past her lips.

"You're going to be a wonderful vampire. He loves you. An eternity of love, Bella. Don't cry." Bella found her voice at last, a brittle croak that made her throat ache.

"I'm sorry for this, Rose. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. I'm free. You're free. Don't be sorry." She looked again at Edward, who had moved to kneel beside her, and opened her mouth to say something else.

It never came. As she drew in breath, her chest hitched once. Twice. Settled. Rose's eyes grew wide and distant, distant and dark; like a glass reflecting eternity.

Bella made a low, sorrowful noise, closed her eyes, and held Rose's hand. Edward spoke, but his voice was distant. Distant and dark.

"Peace be with you, Rose. If there is a God, and if he is just, he will bring you to a better place than this."

Bella felt herself rising, felt herself moving away, running away, as far away as she could go. She made it six feet before she tripped, stumbled, fell to the floor. Her hands clenched at the carpet, as if to tear it from the floor.

Death, despair, love. The love made it worse, somehow. An eternity of love.

Bella put her face in the soft loops of wool, sobbing.


	33. Chapter 33

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 33**

**Unkind**

It took nearly a minute of saying her name before Edward was able to gain Bella's attention. She looked at him, blinking and unable to comprehend, then shook her head to clear it. Edward watched as her eyes filled again with horror, with despair.

"Don't." A simple word, delivered in the same calm, strong manner in which he always spoke. Not a request, not a command. Almost a piece of advice, as in the car, he first night she had met him. _Don't_. Bella clenched her fist, fought down the sorrow that wanted to engulf her, and looked again at her lover.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?"

"Oh, yes. Very much so, I'd say. This has not gone according to plan. Anyone's plan. Unbeknownst to me, there were many of those."

"What do you mean?"

"Your death at Rosalie's hands was meant to be Carlisle's parting gift to his son. Just a little dark comedy. A way of thanking me for centuries of service, and a reminder of who truly holds the power, now and forever. It seems he underestimated your abilities."

"Or my luck."

"It doesn't matter. You are alive and Rosalie is dead. It is regrettable that she took Rose with her, but this was inevitable. Carlisle will not be pleased with this. I think it best that we leave. Now."

"Can I come?" The two vampires had forgotten Tan, who had thrown herself behind the couch when Rose's body had initially jerked back to life. Edward sighed. He looked at Rose's body, looked at Tan, looked at Bella.

"You promised her, Edward," Bella reminded him.

"I did, yes."

"So let's go." Edward nodded.

"Yes, Tanya, you may come." Bella looked over at Rose.

"What about her? We can't just leave her here."

"Carlisle will take care of her. No, don't argue. I realize how preposterous it sounds, but you have to trust me. One of the few customs he seems to care about is giving dead vampires a proper funeral. He will conduct services, and then he will burn her, but he will do both with reverence. I do not know why he does this, but I have seen it more than once. It is the only thing in him that still seems human."

"It feels wrong."

"Everything is going to feel wrong for some times, I think. We must go, Bella. You've done all you can for Rose." Tan came to join them.

"So what now?" Edward turned to Tan. "Where are your shoes?" Tan raised her eyebrows.

"How the hell would I know?"

"You'll need something for your feet, and a coat. The closet in the hall is full of discarded clothing. Find something." Tan looked at Bella, unsure. Bella nodded.

"Do what he says, Tan." She did. Edward turned to Bella.

"Good. Let's go." Bella glanced once more at Rose as they left the room. She wanted to apologize, to take it back somehow. There was no time.

They found Tan at the closet, pulling on her shoes and jacket. Bella had brought no possessions to the mansion, and had none to take.

Edward cared very little for any of it, and had no desire to bring anything with him. He held other apartments, in other places, had more than enough money in banks with which to begin their life.

They left the mansion, packed full of art, trash, and everything in between, to Carlisle.

The Ferrari wouldn't fit three, nor would a motorcycle, of which there were four in the garage. A Jeep was parked behind two of the latter, and Edward leapt on the first, moving it quickly out of the way and returning to move the second.

He seemed agitated, an unusual state for him. Bella thought it best not to question, but Edward picked up on her curiosity.

"I am greatly concerned by what Carlisle may do in the heat of the moment. He is undoubtedly aware of his daughter's death, and I do not expect him to take it well. I hope he may allow us to escape, though I do not know if he will. If he decides to stop us, things will likely not go well."

"I'd ask you to define that, but I think I already know." Edward nodded, and let the second bike drop with a crash, not concerned with it.

He moved back to the Jeep. Bella reached over, hit the button for the garage door opener, and watched it rise. It was raining outside, dark and cold; December rain just barely too warm to freeze. The hunger raged in her, but now was not the time. She heard a howl.

"What about Alice?"

"No time, Bella, and no choice. Carlisle's orders were to leave her. We've already killed his daughter and are stealing her fledgling. I'll not risk angering him further."

Bella looked again out into the blackness beyond the garage door, understanding but not yet ready to accept. Behind her, she heard car doors opening. One closed.

"Bella." Edward was standing at his door, waiting. The passenger side as empty in the front. Tan sat in the rear. Bella bit her lip, fighting against her anger.

"Okay, Edward. It's not right. It's not fair. It's totally fucked up, but I think we crossed the line between right and wrong somewhere around the time I stabbed my friend to death with a fucking table leg, anyway."

"That may well be true. We wait on you, my love. You must decide if you are ready to leave." Bella clenched her teeth, turned, and moved toward the Jeep.

They made it halfway down the driveway before Edward was forced to jam on the brakes, bringing the Jeep to a sudden, skidding halt on the wet asphalt. Bella, not wearing a seatbelt, caught her weight on her arms.

Stronger now than she had been before, she barely felt the impact. Tan thudded against the back of Bella's seat with a squawking cry.

"Edward! Jesus, what are you …" Bella didn't need to finish.

The sweeping sense of dread that engulfed her, starting at the base of her spine and working its way up, told her everything she needed to know. Carlisle. Outside.

Bella looked out through the windshield, and into the eyes of hell.

"Run him over!" It took Bella a moment to recognize her own voice. It sounded like a scared little girl.

"He could pick up the car." Edward's voice was flat, bereft of emotion, accepting, and Bella understood in that moment what was to happen.

This would be the end, likely, for all three of them. Frustration, hate and rage rose up inside her. It was going to end like _this_? Edward picked up on these thoughts, and turned to her.

"I am out of ideas, Bella. I love you, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I brought you into any of this." Before Bella could respond to this, they heard the rear door unlatch.

Bella glanced back. Tan's eyes were fixated on the figure standing before the car. Glazed, unseeing, Tan pushed with her arm, opened the door, stepped out of the car. Bella felt the tug as well, a gentle push.

_Get out_. _Get out, and all will be well_.

It grew like the tide, surging over her thoughts, compelling her.

_Get out, and all will be well_.

Bella felt Edward's own mind drive suddenly into hers like a spike. It acted as a harsh slap, a mental shock so great that it left her reeling. Carlisle's grip on her thoughts was lost.

"All will _not _be well. I'm sorry, Bella. I didn't want to hurt you, but I could think of nothing else to do."

"S'okay." Bella felt groggy, like she had just been pulled from a deep sleep. "What do we do, Edward?"

"We get out. All will not be well. Be ready to run when I tell you."

"Run where?" Edward shrugged.

"Run in whatever direction Carlisle is not." He exited the car and went to stand beside Tan in the rain. Bella followed.

Carlisle towered in front of them, massive, grim and silent, his face a mask of fury. Bella felt rooted to the ground, legs stiff and numb from fear. Run? She wondered if she could move.

"Father." Edward's voice was quiet. Cautious.

Carlisle's eyes moved to his son, seemed to bore into him. Edward stood firm, staring back at the elder vampire.

"Leaving so soon, Edward?" he asked. His voice was light, mocking, but behind it Bella heard anger, and an ageless, depthless hate.

"I thought it best. I can only assume you wish to be rid of me, and of Bella, as soon as possible."

"Rid of you. Yes. Yes, my headstrong son, I wish to be rid of you. And so, you may go. You will leave me Tanya, and you will leave me Alice, and since I am now short a daughter, you will leave me Bella. In doing this, you release yourself from my bond, forever." Edward took a breath, set himself, and looked off to the side and back at Carlisle.

"No, father. I will not."

"Oh no? And tell me, boy … how would you have this encounter end? Shall I allow you and your lover to run off into the darkness? No, I think not. Shall I instead slaughter her, and this half-vampire cow, right where we stand? My child is _dead_, Edward, because of your fledgling. Her life is forfeit."

"Your daughter murdered herself, Carlisle. There is nothing Bella wanted less, but she did what she had to do. Bella proved superior to Rosalie."

"Did she?" Carlisle's voice was raw in its malice. "Did she indeed? What will she do now, Edward? She is a quaking little girl, trembling at the darkness. See how she stares? She stands in the face of eternity, a candle before the blackness of the storm. What _will _she do?" Edward closed his eyes.

"She will run, and when you try to pursue her, I will stop you." Carlisle seemed taken aback by this. He paused for a brief moment, cocked his head, and then howled his horrible laughter.

Bella felt goose bumps ripple up and down her arms. Tan cried out, and took a step backwards, her trance dissolving. Carlisle put his hand out, and she stilled, but looked at Bella as if awaiting instructions.

"You are ready to die for these two, my son?"

"Bella has my heart, and Tanya has my promise to my sister. I will sacrifice myself for them, if that is how it must be."

"Ah, little, holy Edward. Do you truly believe this act can make up for centuries of godless living? Centuries of death and evil? How much blood is on your hands?"

"That blood can never be washed away, Father. You know this. There is much I would atone for, given the chance, but the blood will always remain."

"Perhaps I shall simply kill all three of you." Edward shrugged.

"It is within your power. I ask that as payment for three hundred and fifty years of loyalty, you let us live. Let us go, Carlisle."

"No."

"Then I offer my life for theirs. That is the bargain … the request." Bella wanted to protest, but could not find her voice.

She wondered if it was Carlisle or Edward keeping her from speaking, suspected it was the latter, and began to weep in frustration.

"Your foolish notions of love and redemption disappoint me, Edward. At every step, you have disappointed me. Did you learn nothing from Kate?"

"I learned much from Kate, father."

"Not everything. No, Kate brought one secret with her into the ground, Edward. Sweet little Kate, pure and honest. Wretched. Loathsome. _Good_. All these years and you've never found out. How marvellous.

"Oh, Edward … How she did scream when I chained her to her funeral pyre." Edward's eyes blazed.

His jaw clenched, hands wrapping into fists, muscles tensing. It seemed that at any moment he would spring at Carlisle.

"Garret—" he began, and Carlisle cut him off with the wave of a hand.

"Garret was a fool, and a puppet. It took me little effort to work him into a frothing rage over Kate's transgressions. He brought her to me, Edward, so she would know. Before she died, I wanted her to truly understand the penalty for taking what was mine." Edward was pale. Shaking. Barely in control of himself. He spoke through his teeth.

"I have given you more than three centuries of service for a debt that I did not owe. You will let my child, and Rose's child, leave. Then you will prepare for death." And now Carlisle grinned, his eyes greedy, burning with anticipation.

"Oh, my. How exciting it all is! Yes, Edward, she may leave. You will stay. This will be wonderful indeed." Edward turned to Bella.

"Go." Bella found she could speak again.

"No, Edward. I won't."

"You will. Take Tanya, and go, and do not look back."

"You can't—"

"Go!" he snarled. Bella flinched backward, and then looked at him again, frightened, confused, and unsure. Edward, with a visible effort, brought himself back in control.

"Please, my love. Do not make me force you." His eyes held her for a moment longer, and then Bella saw the anger swallow him again, and he turned back to Carlisle.

She took Tan's hand, turned to her left, and ran, tugging the younger girl along.


	34. Chapter 34

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 34**

**His death**

They made it perhaps two hundred yards through the damp woods before Bella was stopped by a low growling. She skidded in the mud, nearly falling, and came to a halt.

Eyes glittered from the darkness before her.

"Whatthefuckisthat?" Tan asked in a breathless rush.

"That's Alice. She's the other vampire. She knows me … but I think she knows what happened to her sister, too." Alice moved closer, into a patch of moonlight, and Bella saw that her face was drawn and pinched in rage.

She snarled, and charged them, howling. Bella did the only thing she could think of. She held out her hands, still tacky with Rose's blood, and implored Alice to stop.

Alice seemed somewhat taken aback by this. She slid in the mud, came to a stop and rolled back on her haunches, considering Bella.

"Alice, its Bella. I know you remember me. I know you're a lot smarter than you seem. I know you can smell Rose's blood. I know that you know she's dead. Can you understand that I didn't want it, Alice? That I'm sorry? I need you to understand."

Alice took a few steps closer, and made that questioning sound Bella had heard when they had first met: like a dog yawning. Bella held her hand out. Alice sniffed it, growled again, looking up at Bella with accusing eyes. Bella knelt, and matched Alice's gaze.

"I didn't want to kill her, Alice. I didn't. Now I have to run. You can stop me … kill me here if you want. That might not be such a bad thing. Or you can come with me. I don't know how far we'll get, but it's me or Carlisle now. You have to choose."

Alice seemed to be struggling, perhaps attempting to process the words, and perhaps only making her own decisions based on what she sensed. Bella couldn't tell.

Finally, Alice moved out of Bella's way.

"Thank you, Alice. We have to go now. You can … God, I'm so sorry. Tan, come on!" Bella took Tan's hand again, and they began running once more down the path.

After a moment, Alice caught up to them, overtook them, turned and met Bella's eyes, and then shot away on a diagonal, down a different path. Bella relied on blind instinct, as she had so many times before, and followed Alice's route.

Edward stood facing his father, trying hard to keep the rage from flooding him completely and drowning his thoughts. Carlisle's eyes glittered at him, mocking, as he spoke.

"So, After almost four hundred years, things _finally _get interesting." Edward's voice was low. Strained.

"You murdered her."

"I did. I did indeed. She took what was mine."

"I was never yours, Carlisle."

"No, not in your mind, but it matters not. Kate learned her lesson, and I gained my fledgling back. As is always the case, Edward, I won. And now we stand here, father and son. Soon you will attack me, and not just because I took one bride from you, but because now I threaten a second."

"You cannot have her, Carlisle."

"I don't _want _her. I never did. I thought she was a terrible choice for you, my son. Drugs? Prostitution? She is unclean, Edward. However did you find her?"

"I saw her standing on a corner. I saw her _working_, Carlisle, waiting to pick up some strange man and have sex with him, and the strength I sensed in her caught my attention. So much strength, from one in so low a place. Would you even have noticed?"

"Ah. Strength. Much like Kate, is she not? Young Bella does not like to be owned by anyone. As I said: a terrible choice for a fledgling."

"I do not look for slaves, Carlisle. I look for equals."

"I grow tired of this nonsense, Edward. It will lead nowhere. Your child, and the half-vampire, and now yet _another _of my daughters, are all making their escape as we speak."

"Good."

"We shall see how 'good' it is when she feels you die, Edward."

"That is how it is to be then? My life for theirs?"

"That is the bargain, Edward. You know me, and you know that I honour my bargains … though I certainly stack the odds in my favour before making them. If she flees tonight and does not return, she will not suffer at my hands. This … this will be worth the price my daughter paid."

"I will not make it easy on you, Carlisle."

"My son, you never have." They were quiet for a moment, father and son, bitter enemies.

Edward knew he faced death, but his love for Bella, his rage over Kate, left him numb. There was no fear.

Carlisle, sensing this, broke into a malicious grin. A single thought came to Edward in that moment. Whether from his mind, or Carlisle's, he could not say. _Get it over with. _

Edward charged.

Carlisle, alive long before the birth of Christ, had met many challenges in his day. Some were human, some vampires, all had sought only to bring about his destruction.

None had achieved that goal, and few had even come close. Now his son charged across the wet grass, roaring, eyes dark with hatred. Carlisle's amazing mind processed each instant like a still picture floating gently in time's pool.

He had ages to react. Eons. Edward, powerful as he was, held no threat. Carlisle stood and waited for his son. He waited to free himself from the chains of his progeny.

Rose, dead. Edward, dead. Alice would likely turn on Bella as soon as Edward's death stole the whore's vampirism away. Perhaps then Alice would become a rogue monster, at least until she was hunted down and destroyed by other vampires, an aberration too dangerous to let live.

Carlisle no longer cared. He stood at the dawn of a new millennium, and at the edge of the next phase of his life, a phase where he doled out the gifts of his vampirism slowly, to supplicants who would appreciate the power he delivered to them.

Carlisle had time to smile as Edward charged. Ah, it was going to be glorious.

Hitting Carlisle was like hitting a wall of solid concrete. Edward collided with his father, fingers hooked into claws, seeking to rend and tear.

The force of the initial blow alone would have shattered mortal bones. Carlisle took only a small step backward. Hands like manacles around Edward's wrists, forcing his claws away from Carlisle's face.

Edward snarled, lunged forward anyway, oblivious to the pain as his shoulders dislocated, snapping his teeth at Carlisle's neck. He tried to bite, to drink.

Perhaps if he could cut Carlisle, he might weaken his father. Carlisle twisted, and pulled Edward around by the arms. Edward felt himself flying through the air, heaved to the ground.

Carlisle landed atop him. The creature was cackling, a horrific, mad sound, happy at last for action, after so many years of dark study.

Edward screamed as he felt teeth tear through the flesh of his neck, opening his jugular vein in a warm gush.

He struggled against the weight on top of him, to no avail, as the draining sensation began. Carlisle was drinking. Laughing. Bathing in Edward's blood.

The world began to grey, and Edward felt his strength flagging. No chance, now. He could not move Carlisle.

The pulse of his heart seemed to grow distant, like a receding tide. He saw faces. Kate. Bree. Rose. Alice. Bella. He fixated on this last, on the face of this woman that he loved.

He wanted to focus. He wanted to see her eyes one last time. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry for everything, and that he would meet her in some other place, at the end of the mortal life his demise was buying her.

He would wait there for her. If only he could focus. If only he could see her eyes.

Edward was still trying to make this happen when he died.


	35. Chapter 35

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 35**

**Hollow**

Bella felt him go.

The sensation was like a sharp tugging that pulled at her whole body, and yet held no physical force.

She stopped, bewildered for a moment, and then realization flooded in like a dark tide.

Tan and Alice were looking at her in confusion, but Bella could not see them, could not see anything except blackness before her eyes.

She felt Edward's presence – so established within her that she had ceased even to notice it – dwindling, blinking out of existence.

She felt her knees unhinge, and the gravel by the side of the road they had been following bit into her legs.

She didn't notice. Didn't care.

Bella tilted her head back and cried out denial to the uncaring stars.

Wailing, weeping, she fell to her side, curled up like a baby, uncontrollable shuddering wracking her body.

Edward was gone, gone from her and gone from the world. Gone.

Bella wept, and screamed, and it was some time before Tan could do anything more than watch.

At last, Bella's grief subsided enough for her to hear Tanya's voice calling her name, asking what was wrong.

She fought against her tears, fought against the despair threatening to engulf her completely.

Already she felt weaker, colder, more human, though she knew that she had not yet begun to revert to humanity.

How long would it be before the various gifts Edward had bestowed upon her withered away? A week? A month?

There was no time to contemplate this now. She had to get Tanya and Alice away from Carlisle. The destroyer. The dark god. The most evil being that she would ever encounter.

Edward's life for hers, but had Bella ever truly believed it would come to that? Now she knew it had indeed, and she knew as well that by staying so close to Carlisle, she was putting them all in great danger. They had to get away. She stood up, brushing herself off and sniffling.

"What is it, Bella?" Tan asked.

"It's over. He's gone." Bella's voice was hollow. Dead.

"Carlisle?" Bella laughed. The sound was without humour. She took a breath and shuddered.

"No. Didn't you listen? Carlisle is indestructible. He's a god. It would be s—stupid to even fight him." Tan looked at her, uncomprehending, and Bella felt her grief turn to anger before she could stop it.

"He's _dead_, don't you get it? Edward's dead, and you don't even know what that means! You don't even know what your life cost!" Tan blanched, stepped back, frightened by this sudden mood swing.

Bella saw this, felt despair well up inside her again, and covered her eyes. She could find nothing there in the darkness, no sense of Edward, nothing to comfort her. After a moment, she looked up again.

"I'm sorry, Tan. We have to go. Now. While we still can."

"Are you going to be okay, Bella?"

"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. He's gone I owe it to Edward to make sure you and Alice are safe. After that? Nothing matters. Let's go."

They began a hurried dash along the road, glancing frequently behind them, expecting that Carlisle would show up at any moment to finish them all.

Eventually they realized that he was not coming, that he would indeed honour his bargain with Edward and let them go, and so they slowed to a walk, waiting for headlights, waiting for someone who would pull over. Someone Alice could make short work of.

Someone with a car.


	36. Chapter 36

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 36**

**Coming home**

Mike's building.

The hallway outside.

Bella could hear muffled grunts, the occasional cooing of some girl, bedsprings creaking.

It sounded like a bad porn movie, and she smiled despite the bitter taste in her mouth.

She'd come here because she didn't know where else to go. Dirty, tired, out of money, too ashamed and too frightened to go to Ben and Angela, she had returned to the building she had called home for the past year.

The trip hadn't taken long. A car had eventually come along, the driver slowing for the two young women standing in the cold rain.

Bella had felt bad about rewarding this kindness with death, but she was still a vampire. Still needed to feed. Tan watched in horror, but Bella could see the thirst in her eyes.

By the end of the car ride Tan, grudging and sullen, had admitted that she was beginning to believe the whole vampire thing.

They had spent the day in a motel, sleeping. Bella had packed Alice into the bathroom, blocking the cracks under the door with towels, giving the girl plenty of blankets with which to build some sort of nest.

She and Tan had taken the beds. Bella woke, weeping, at sunset. There was no Edward to wake up next to, and never would be again.

By that evening, Tan was already looking more human. Bella still felt the same. She fed on a victim in an adjacent room, and then the trio had continued toward Brooklyn, toward Mike.

Mike's voice, through the door.

"That's good, baby. That's real good, but you … gotta sound like you're … getting the best fuck of your life. Course, I know you are, right baby?"

"Anything you say, Mike." The girl turned the volume up a notch. Bella grimaced.

She'd done this. She'd been here. It was a place she never intended to be again. She stood in the same building, but not in the same place. She had strength now, power now, purpose now. Descent and rebirth.

Bella had survived this process twice already. She would survive a third. Bella kicked the door, hard, just below the lock. The frame splintered and the entire mechanism fell to the floor with a clatter.

The door swept inward on creaking hinges, ricocheted off the wall with a flat smacking sound, and came to a stop.

Mike was quick; Bella had to give him that. The door had not even finished its swing before he was rolling off of the girl, yanking a drawer in the nightstand open and pulling a gun from within.

In a moment more he was up on his feet, pointing the weapon toward the dark hallway. From his perspective, there were only vague grey shapes. Bella's eyes were much better.

Before her stood Mike, naked and still half-aroused, gun cocked and held out in front of him.

"Who the fuck are you and what do you want?" he snarled.

"Put down the gun, dumbass, before you get hurt."

"Answer the fucking question, bitch. Who is that? You one of my girls? Gonna get you some revenge; maybe put some holes in old Mike? Answer me or I start shooting."

"Something like that. I'll give you a few hints. She's short, she's cute and she's been missing for a month or two." The gun wavered for a brief moment. Mike's eyes registered vague surprise before growing icy again.

"I didn't authorize no vacation, Bella."

"I didn't fucking ask for one." Mike sneered at her, still unafraid. Bella knew that look, and it was all she could do not to charge screaming into the room, to tear her former pimp limb from limb.

It spoke of Mike's complete disdain for his girls. It was a look that carried with it all the baggage of his beatings, his orders, and his forcing addiction upon them.

Bella tried to think of Edward. Tried to remain calm.

"Put the gun down. Now." She said. Mike actually smiled at this, and shook his head.

"No, I don't think so. Here's how it's going to go: You're going to come in here, and I'm going to kick the living shit out of you. If you beg real nice, maybe I'll stop before I kill you. If that's how it goes, then you'll get back to your room, and heal up, and get your ass out where it belongs, and maybe then I _might _give you a ration sometime this fucking century." Bella laughed. After the blood, heroin had lost its appeal.

"Last chance, Mike. Put down the gun."

"No." Bella shrugged, and released her grip on Alice's shoulder. What happened next was better even than she could have expected.

Alice sprang into the room, howling, so quick that she seemed a blur even to Bella.

Mike's expression moved from confidence to terror in an instant. He got off one shot, wild, and the recoil from the gun caused him to drop it.

Alice leapt, and Bella was treated to the wholly satisfying view of Mike losing his bladder on his own feet.

He ducked at the last possible moment, and Alice sailed over him, into the bed. Mike scrabbled away on all fours, making noises that sounded something like words, something like screams.

There was a choking sound from the bed, and when Alice reappeared, she was drenched in crimson. She leapt down to the floor and advanced on Mike, growling low in her throat, the rumble of a jungle cat. Mike had backed himself into a corner, soiled, wet with piss and tears, and was making some sort of plea for his life.

Bella called Alice's name, and the vampire stopped, less than two feet from Mike. She raised her lip in a sneer that was oddly human, then turned, picked the gun up in her teeth, and brought it to Bella.

"Don't do that. Dogs do that. Use your hands." Bella's voice was soft, her heart not really in the scolding. She was too busy watching Mike to ensure he didn't move.

She entered the room, Tan and Alice trailing behind, and stood by Mike's desk, looking at him. He sat on the floor, glaring up, making the slow move from fear to smouldering humiliation.

"Stand up."

"Bitch, I ain't doing _shit _for you." Bella's expression was almost bored as she swung the gun upward and fired twice, putting a shot just to either side of Mike's head. Behind her, Tan made a small shrieking noise. Mike's eyes went wide, his face paper white.

"I don't have to miss, Mike. Trust me on that, 'kay? I'm in charge, now. Stand the fuck up." Mike did what he was told. "Put on some fucking clothes. I've seen all of _that _that I plan on seeing, thank you." Mike struggled into a pair of jeans, very nearly catching himself in the zipper.

Behind Bella, Tan giggled. Mike shot her a look that made it perfectly clear that being laughed at by women was not something he was used to tolerating. Bella waved the gun, drawing his attention.

"Don't even look at her. She can laugh all day, if she wants. We need money, Mike. Now. As much as you have. You're going to get it, and you're going to get us some clothes, and then you're going to leave." Mike's eyes blazed.

"I'm not taking orders from—" Bella cut him off.

"Yeah? That right? Your friend GLOCK here says you will. Even if he didn't, I think Alice's next on the chain of command." Alice was sniffing around the bed. On hearing her name she glanced at Bella, wandered over, sat on her haunches and licked blood from her arm, indifferent.

"Get us some clothes, Mike. Then come back."

"The _fuck _happened to you, Bella?" Mike's voice was plaintive. Confused.

"It's a long story, and you're not worth the time. You know sizes. You can guess what'll fit us. If you feel like running, go right ahead. Alice could track you anywhere, even before you smelled like piss, and as you've seen, she's a lot faster than you are. If you're not back in five minutes, I'll send her out." Mike opened his mouth to say something. Bella cut him short with a gesture.

"Next time I see your tongue, Mike, I blow it out of your fucking mouth. Clothes. Now." Bella motioned toward the door. After a moment, Mike went.

"That was amusing …" Tan was looking at the bed with distaste. A hand hung limp from under the covers. "Do you two do this often?"

"Me? No. Not when I can avoid it. Alice, maybe. I … Alice, get out of there." Alice was inspecting the closet, sniffing at garments. Bella didn't know where Mike's supply might be hidden.

It was unlikely that it would be any place so unguarded, but the last thing she needed was an overdosing vampire. Tan sat at Mike's desk and lit a cigarette from the pack that was sitting there. She dragged, coughed, dragged again.

"Three days without one of these. Thought I was going to go crazy."

"Yeah, they get their claws into you." They were quiet for a minute. Tan smoked. Bella watched. Alice sat at Bella's side, licking her arms like a cat.

"You want one?" Tan asked, stubbing hers out.

"No. Thanks. There's a shower through that door. You want the first one? I'll deal with Mike."

"Okay." Tan made her way to the bathroom. Bella sat down at the desk, looking at her watch.


	37. Chapter 37

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 37**

**Warm**

Mike made it back with just less than twenty seconds to spare, and dumped the clothes unceremoniously on the desk in front of Bella.

He stood, waiting, anger like embers at the back of his eyes. Bella had her feet up. Alice was curled up at her side, but she opened one eye and growled low when Mike entered. Bella glanced at the clothes, nodded, and turned to look at him.

"So what happens now, Mike?"

"You tell me, slu—Bella. You're the one with the gun and the crazy bitch who thinks she's a dog."

"You don't want to talk about her like that. I don't think she's very fond of you, and I _know _that I'm not."

"Feeling's mutual."

"Money, Mike. How much have you got here? Don't lie to me."

"Three, maybe four grand in the safe."

"I want it. Then you can go … under one condition."

"What's that?"

"Get out of this business. You're smart enough to make money some other way. I don't give a shit what you do. Open a bar. Run drugs. Whatever. Just stay away from girls. You've fucked up enough of them." Mike rolled his eyes.

"Spare me. Doesn't seem to have done you too badly …" Bella closed her eyes a moment, thinking of Edward.

"No? You don't have a clue, Mike, and you're walking into bad territory. I'm giving you a break here. If revenge was everything, I should have Alice tear your prick off with her teeth so I can feed it to you. It's not, and I'm trying to be better than that. Don't talk to me about how I'm doing. Just get me my money."

Mike went to a safe at the wall, and if Bella had been human, things might have ended some other way. As it was, she could see exactly what was in the safe, was well aware of the cold glint of metal in the shadows. Mike stood by the safe, appearing to count money. He looked up at her, and there was a small smile on his face.

"You sure I have to leave? I was damn good at this." Bella rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, exploiting twelve-year-olds and beating up women. You're the greatest, Mike." Mike shrugged.

"Got to keep you in line. We had a business relationship, Bella. I gave you what you wanted, you paid for it."

"Fuck you. I never wanted that. You forced it on me."

"And you loved it. I know you stole shit from those other girls. You loved getting high. What's so wrong with that? It's good shit. What does it matter what you paid for it?"

"That's not love. That's need."

"What's the difference?" Mike shifted position. His eyelid twitched, and he glanced at her. Cagey. Bella knew what was coming.

She thought about his question. Love. Need. What was the difference? She loved Edward. She needed the blood. She loved the blood. She needed Edward.

"You can't have love without need. You _can _have need without love. This is going nowhere, Mike. You're done." Bella glanced down at Alice, who was looking up at her in anticipation.

Alice could feel the tension growing. Bella held out a hand, hidden from Mike's view behind the desk, telling Alice to wait.

"Suppose I said I don't want to leave?" Mike would have seemed calm to a normal person. To Bella he was a bundle of nervous tics. Tiny involuntary muscle movements around his eyes, in the muscles of his right arm.

"I'd tell you that you don't have much choice."

"Baby, I have all the choice in the _world_." Mike snarled and made his move, bringing his arm up, pointing the gun at Bella. As he began his move, Bella closed her hand into a fist. Alice leapt into motion.

Mike was quick, but Alice was supernatural, a creature beyond the bounds of human limitation. If the vampire girl had moved fast before, she was like lightning now, covering the distance between her and Mike so quickly that her passage made an audible rushing noise.

The gun was knocked away; Alice's teeth found his throat, her head made a ripping, rending motion, and Bella's former pimp's life ended with a gurgle that was supposed to be a scream.

"I thought you said you didn't do this often." Tan was standing at the doorway to the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, staring at the slumped form that had once been Mike.

Bella was pulling it toward the closet, where she had already deposited the corpse of the girl in the bed.

Bella glanced over at Tan, shrugged. She finished her task, closed the closet doors, walked over to the desk, and lit a cigarette.

The first drag made her cough. Made her head spin. The second went down more smoothly.

"And I thought you didn't want any of those." Tan said.

"If I can't have anything to love, I'll take something to need."

"What?"

"Never mind. Here, Mike brought us some clothes."

"Okay. Bella?"

"Yeah."

"What now?"

"Let me think about that. You don't owe me anything, Tan. There's money in the safe. Take it and run. Or stick around. I'd be happy to have someone to talk to, at least for tonight. I have to wait here for a while."

"I'll stay. Go take a shower. Am I safe with … her?" Alice was again curled up at the base of the desk, seeming to doze. Bella nodded, got up, and headed for the bathroom.

The shower was heaven. Good, hot water and lots of it. After two days on the road, and skipping a shower at the motel, she'd felt terrible. Being clean helped. Being rid of Mike helped more.

She didn't regret it, not at all. One oppressor down. She wasn't ready to think about the other.

Bella showered, dried off, brushed her hair back into a ponytail and tied it wet. The girl in the mirror looked pale and tired, but more alive than the heroin addict who had stared back at her not two months ago.

Edward had done that for her. Now he was dead. She put it out of her mind, and left the girl in the mirror behind.

"You going to try to get _her _in there?" Tan indicated toward Alice, who was now sprawled out on the bed, snoring in a most unladylike way, oblivious to the blood on the covers.

"Going to try. She stinks." Tan nodded again. She was counting money, pulled from the safe and spread across the desk. Bella pulled off her towel. Tan held up a hand and looked away.

"Whoa, hey, let's keep the full frontal nudity to a minimum. Alice's enough." Bella laughed.

"Sorry. I used to shower with other girls in this building all the time. You stop thinking about it." She put on some clothes. Mike had managed a good guess at both her size and Tan's.

Bella had never been a heavy girl to begin with, but now vampirism had shaped her form to its absolute peak. Clothes that would have fit the Bella that Mike had known were now a little loose.

"Alice. Hey, Alice. Wake up, lazy. You want to take a bath? Or a shower?" Alice rubbed sleep out of her eyes and looked up at Bella, puzzled. Bella indicated toward the bathroom with her hand, and Alice glanced toward it, not comprehending.

"Ah, fuck, you don't know what the hell I'm talking about. This should be interesting. Come over here, Alice." Alice followed Bella into the bathroom. After a moment, Tan entered as well.

"Gotta see you try this." Bella grinned. She turned on the water and motioned toward the bathtub. Alice looked nervous.

"Look, silly, it's like rain except its warm, and there's no mud. You'll be fine." Alice was alternating between looking at the shower, and looking at Bella. Her expression was sceptical. Bella laughed.

"You'll be _fine _Alice. Look, Tan and I both took showers, and we're exactly the same."

"Well, technically our hair is now 'full of body and life,' I think. According to the shampoo bottle, anyway." Bella rolled her eyes. She moved toward the shower, ducked her head under the water for a moment, and then returned to where Alice sat.

"See? It's fine, Alice."

"Bathroom's getting soaked, Bella." Tan tossed a towel on the ground.

"The superintendent's dead. I don't think he's going to bill us. Come on, Alice. We haven't got all night." Alice's expression was uncertain, but she allowed herself to be lead toward the shower.

After a moment's hesitation, she stepped in and, feeling the warm water, gave them a brilliant smile. Bella laughed. Tan held up her hands.

"Okay, I'm out of here. As much as Mike might've appreciated it, I'm not into watching you teach Alice the miracle of soap. I'll be waiting." She departed, returning to her counting.

Bella turned back to Alice and began attempting to instruct her.


	38. Chapter 38

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 38**

**Safe **

Bella left the bathroom laughing. Alice trailed behind her, appearing bewildered by the towel wrapped around her upper torso.

Her hair was dry and brushed, and she looked like a completely different person.

"Wow, holy shit … she's gorgeous with all of that dirt off," was Tan's appraisal.

"Yeah. You should've seen her preening with her hair in the mirror. You'd think she was getting ready for a date."

"Well, good to get in the habit. I don't think running around dirty and naked is going to work for very long in the city."

"No, probably not. That reminds me … time for Alice to learn about clothing, I think."

"Don't you suppose they tried that already?" Tan asked. Bella pondered this, and then shrugged.

"I don't know. I'm not sure they ever gave her a fair chance. I think they saw her regress, or change, or whatever, into an animal … and they just let it happen. I think there's more human left than they imagined. Or maybe she's starting to change back. I have no real idea how this shit works."

"I'd comment that we're all human and I still think you're crazy, but it gets harder to keep that up every time I think about the last twenty-four hours." Bella nodded.

"I think any 'there's no such thing as vampires' argument sort of goes out the window after you meet Carlisle. Hey, Alice, you want to put on some clothes?" Alice looked at her, not understanding.

She tugged at the towel, and it fell away. Alice reared back on her haunches and stretched, showing off well more than was proper.

"I could've done without that," Tan commented.

"She doesn't know any better. Come here, Alice. This is a shirt. See? Like the one I'm wearing. Put it on. No … no, the other way sweetheart. That's backwards. That's … Alice, here, let me help." Tan laughed. Bella glanced sideways at her, questioning.

"You sound like my sister. She's got two kids. Also, you're _never _going to get her to understand the concept of a bra." Bella smiled and rolled her eyes.

"No, I didn't even bother."

"It's been over an hour since all that shooting, Bella, and no one's even bothered to investigate?" Tan had finished counting the money, and was reclining in Mike's chair, feet on the desk, smoking another cigarette.

Bella was sitting on a maroon couch across the room, also smoking, taking a break from teaching Alice how to walk on two feet. The room was nearly dark, illuminated only by the diffuse glow creeping in from the city outside.

"Most of the girls are out right now. The rest are probably hoping he's dead."

"Nice guy, huh?"

"Oh, yes. A warm and friendly person. Mike was loved by all." Bella's voice was dry. Tan laughed.

"Right. Okay, so … what's next? There's four grand and two bags of what I assume is either heroin or coke in the safe. I don't know anything about that shit and don't even want to touch it. Do I get a share of the money?"

"Yeah. Take half. I'd give you all of it, but I need some immediate funds."

"Whatever. Two thousand bucks will make up for one lousy night. That's not enough for you to flee to Mexico with, though. Are you staying here? I think New York might be hazardous to your health, Bella."

There was a thud. Alice had been attempting to cross the room on only her feet, and had lost her balance. She made a sound of frustration. Bella smiled at her, said something encouraging, and turned back to Tan.

"New York is dangerous to everyone's health. I don't give a shit. And I don't really know what's next yet, Tan. Sorry. Right now I'm waiting for Jessica to come in. I need to see her. If she's still alive."

"Jessica?"

"She's a friend. One of the few I have. After I talk with her, Christ … I should run. You should go home, and I should run. I should take off and go to California. Or Europe. Or fucking Japan. Anywhere where Carlisle's _not_, but …"

Tan arched an eyebrow; spread her hands, waiting for Bella to elaborate.

"But I don't want to do any of that." Bella sighed, ran a hand through her hair, and shook her head. Her jaw clenched. "I'm so fucking tired of living my life afraid, Tan. He took everything I had. When Edward … when it happened, when I felt him go, I almost gave up right there. How am I going to survive? How do I live knowing that Carlisle's out there somewhere? That he might show up any time?

"That the horrible, twisted, evil _thing _that murdered Edward is still wandering free?"

"I don't know, Bella."

"Me neither. And that's not all. What have I got left here? I have no job. I have three friends, one of whom also now have no job and is still hooked on smack. The other two don't really understand me and don't know how to help me. In another week or two, tops, I'm not even going to be a vampire anymore." Bella rolled her eyes and bit her lower lip, fighting back tears. Tan seemed to be trying to find the right words, but coming up empty. Bella waved her hand, dismissive.

"Don't worry about it, Tan. I'll be okay."

"Look, Bella, I'm just a poor Dominican girl from the Bronx, so maybe it's not my place to say, but maybe you need to look on the bright side? You're not on heroin. You've got friends. This might be a chance to start a new life."

Bella said nothing, just stared, sullen, at the floor. Tan toyed with another cigarette for a moment, and then lit it. She looked concerned.

"What, Tan?"

"You want me to be honest?"

"Yes. I can handle that." Tan shrugged, trying for nonchalance.

"I don't know you very well, Bella. We only met a day ago. But I like you, and I'm worried that you're going to go and do something stupid, like kill yourself or something. I'm afraid to leave you alone." Bella shook her head.

"No, I don't think so. At least, it hadn't occurred to me yet. Not since right after Edward died anyway. I wouldn't do that to you or Alice."

"Good. She needs you to take care of her. And I think you can count her as another friend, and me, so now you're up to five. You could maybe forget Carlisle, if you tried, and go back to a normal life. Would that be so bad?" Bella pondered this, trying to put her feelings into words.

"No," she said after some time. "No, it wouldn't be so bad. Being human is a wonderful thing, in a lot of ways, and I guess I could probably get used to it again. It's being without _him _that I'll never get used to. I'll never forget, Tan. I … there was love, a lot of it, even though we didn't know each other for that long.

"But that's not all of it. When Edward turned me into a vampire, it connected us in a way that human beings just can't understand.

"The way his mind worked, he was always there, always with me. I didn't even really _notice _it, not until he was gone. I feel empty, Tan. Like a part of me died with him. That feeling's not going to go away. I can tell you that right now. At best, it's just going to fade a little."

"So what are your options then, Bella? Find another vampire? Make the change again? Maybe you could get Alice to do it."

"Alice's not strong enough. I've been thinking about it since we left the mansion, Tan. I've been trying not to, but I can't help it, and I guess really I know what the next move is. That's why I told you that you could go. You don't need to be a part of this. I don't want you to." Tan closed her eyes, rested her forehead in her palm, and sighed.

When she spoke, she did not look at Bella.

"You're going back, aren't you?" Bella nodded, looking out the window.

The rain on the glass distorted the red light of a neon sign across the street, made it ripple, reminding her of blood. After a moment, she answered Tan's question.

"Yes. I'm going back. I'm going to kill that fucker." Tan was quiet a moment, smoking her cigarette and staring up at the ceiling.

The ghosts of car headlights from the street below made the room pulse as if breathing. Finally, Tan spoke.

"That's crazy, Bella. You said so yourself. You said he was a god."

"The Romans killed God two thousand years ago. Or his son, anyway. Maybe I can do the same." Tan blew air through her pursed lips, unimpressed with this line of reasoning.

"What are you going to do, Bella? Shoot him?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. I'll bring a gun. And a knife. A big one."

"Oh, good. A big knife." Tan rolled her eyes.

"What about garlic? A wooden stake? Maybe some holy water or a cross?"

"That's all bullshit. Carlisle's just like anything else … if you destroy his brain, or his heart, it'll kill him. The problem is that you need something like a nuclear bomb to do it."

"Or a big knife." The sarcasm in Tan's voice was caustic.

"What do you want from me, Tan? I have to try. I'll never forgive myself if I don't try."

"Edward would never forgive you for going back," Tan said. Bella drew in a shocked breath, and Tan looked up at her, saw the expression on Bella's face, and immediately put her hand to her forehead in regret.

"I'm sorry, Bella. Really. That was unfair." After a moment, Bella shook her head.

"No. It would only be unfair you were wrong. But I have to, Tan. I have to. Go home. Get away from this. Forget you ever met me, or Carlisle, or any of us, and go back to your life." Tan considered this, and nodded.

"Okay, Bella. I'm sorry you have to do this, but I know damn well I can't stop you, and I don't know enough about this to try and talk you out of it. I'll stop making you feel bad about it."

"Are you leaving?"

"I have nowhere to be … might as well hang here. I'll leave when you do. Or when we run out of cigarettes. Whichever comes first." Bella nodded, and lit another.

Time passed, and girls began to show up. Bella greeted each with a sardonic grin. Bella had been one of Mike's girls, and they all knew her.

They asked where he was. Mike was out, she told them. Would he be back soon? No … no, she didn't think so.

One by one, each girl got the point. Most left smiling. None had called the cops. Bella might not have brought salvation – many of the girls would simply move on to new pimps and pushers – but at least she had brought them temporary freedom.

Jessica was one of the last, and she came in bruised and bleeding, black eyes like raccoon markings, rail thin. The heroin was finally getting the better of her. Bella could see it in her posture, in her eyes, and in the way it had eaten away at her body.

Jessica took one look at Bella, and her shoulders slumped. She looked down at the ground and began to weep. Bella crossed the distance between them at a run and took Jessica up in her arms, holding the girl, crying herself, murmuring words of comfort to her friend. Finally, through hitching breaths, Jessica was able to speak.

"I thought you were dead!"

"No. Just gone. Are you okay, Jessica?" Jessica sniffled and looked up at Bella.

"Yes. I mean … no. I mean …"

"You'll live." Jessica nodded. She embraced Bella again for a moment, then stood back.

"You look different." Bella smiled at this, wiping her eyes.

"I guess I am. No more smack. No more Mike. At all. We took care of him." Jessica's eyes widened.

"Is he—?"

"Dead? Yes." The expression that followed this piece of news had no business on the face of a twelve-year-old.

It was a combination of satisfaction, glee, and hate. It hurt Bella's heart to see it there, but she understood. She understood very well.

"Good," Jessica said.

"Yes. Listen, sweetheart, how do you feel?" Jessica pondered this a moment, then sighed.

"I don't know. I don't even care anymore. I don't care about the fucking, or the beatings, or what the other girls say about me. I don't care about scoring crack or meth. I don't even like shooting up anymore, but I _need _it." Bella frowned.

"This isn't supposed to be your life. We're going to change that."

"We are?"

"Yes. Here, hang on a second." Bella counted out several hundred dollars in cash and set it on the desk.

"You're going to take a cab to Smith Street, and get out at Eric's bar on Pacific. You're going to ask the man at the door if you can talk to Ben. Chances are that the guy you're asking will _be _Ben, but it might be the other bouncer.

If Ben isn't there, tell the bouncer Alex that Bella said he needs to call Ben right now. Can you remember this?" Jessica nodded, big eyes peering at Bella, trying to keep track.

"Good. When you meet Ben, you're going to give him the note I'm about to write, and whatever cash you don't spend on the cab. He's going to take you in until I get back. Trust me, he'll do it. "

"Where are you going? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I'm going away for a bit. I have things I have to take care of."

"Who are these people?"

"Friends. Don't worry about me, kiddo. Get yourself into that cab, and go see Ben."

"Okay, Bella." Bella found paper in the desk, and scribbled out a quick note.

Ben and Angela,

This is Jessica. She's addicted to heroin and she needs your help. She's a sweet, wonderful girl who deserves better, and I'm begging you to help her get through this. I'm sorry there's no notice, but I know I can count on you. Please do this for me. I don't know if I'll ever see you again.

There's something dangerous I have to do. I can't explain. It's too fucked up. Everything is fucked up, but I want you to know that right now, at this moment, I am okay. Better than I ever was. Clean and sober and I have a reason to live, even though I don't know if I will. That's why I need you to help her.

Please. She's just a kid, and I need her to live, even if I don't. Don't worry about hearing from Jessica's former employer. He's dead. If Jessica needs someone to hate, let her hate me.

Thank you so much.

I love you both.

- Bella


	39. Chapter 39

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 39**

**Done**

The note was a gamble. If Jessica read it, she would never make it to Eric's bar. If she knew that Bella was sending her to a life without heroin, she'd choose the street.

Bella folded the note in half once, then again, and taped it shut.

"Take this," she said, handing it to the girl.

"Don't open it. Don't read it. Just take it and give it to Ben." Jessica looked concerned.

"You sure?"

"Absolutely. Ben is a sweet guy, and his girlfriend Angela's wonderful. You're going to live with them, for a while at least. They've got a big black dog named Jake. He's a sweetheart. You'll love him."

"Where am I going to get a fix?" It hurt to lie to Jessica, but there was no choice. Bella looked into the girl's eyes and did her best.

"Ben will take care of that. He knows people. Do you trust me, Jessica?"

"Yes, Bella."

"Good. Give me a hug and then get the hell out of here." Jessica embraced her again, and Bella hugged back.

She hoped to make it through the dark days ahead, but knew it was unlikely. Jessica was redemption. Even if Bella failed and Carlisle destroyed her, Jessica at least was safe.

After a moment, they broke apart. Jessica was crying again when she said goodbye, but she moved resolutely toward the door. At its edge, Bella called to her.

"Hey, Jessica?" The girl turned around, cocked her head, and raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah?"

"Do you still pray every night?"

"I stopped. I didn't think God was listening."

"Maybe he was."

"Maybe I'll start again."

"Do that. And pray for me, okay?"

Bella lit a cigarette and leaned back, lost in thought. It hurt, seeing Jessica, but in that bittersweet way—as much pleasure as pain. Tan spoke up.

"Seems like a nice kid." Bella nodded.

"There's no fix waiting for her with this guy Ben, is there?"

"Of course not."

"Think she'll make it through?"

"God, I hope so."

"You forgot to tell her _why _she should pray for you." Bella gave Tan a bitter smile.

"No. I didn't forget." Tan stood up, stretched, walked over to the desk and looked Bella in the eyes.

"He's going to _kill _you, Bella. I'm sorry, but this is crazy." Bella shook her head.

"You can't talk me out of it, Tan."

"Too bad. I'm not going to stop trying. Will you bring Alice?"

"Yes."

"Will she fight him?"

"I don't know."

"What if he kills her too?" Bella smacked her hand down on the table and looked up at Tan, eyes flaring.

"Then he fucking kills us both. Alice's probably better off anyway. That was the decision. That was the plan. Kill Alice, Kill Rose, drop you in the city and run like hell. Carlisle just fucked it up." Tan took a step back, holding up her hands.

"Okay, Bella. I'm sorry. I know this is hard on you."

"No, we're beyond that. This is the easiest thing in my life, Tan. _I have no choice._" Tan shrugged, clearly unconvinced.

Bella dragged at her cigarette, blew smoke into the dark room, tried not to think about Edward. She didn't want to think of him until the next evening, until she was working herself up to a fever pitch of fury and hatred, ready to kill or be killed.

"If I live through it, do you want me to find you?" she asked.

"Hell yes."

"I don't have an apartment. Give me your address and phone number. Maybe I'll be in touch."

"Sure." Tan scribbled the information down. Bella stuck it in her back pocket and went back to staring out the window.

"Thanks for staying, Tan." She said finally. "I know you could've left a couple hours ago."

"It's okay. I spent the time thinking up excuses to explain to my friends where the hell I've been." Bella laughed a bit at that.

"I have no idea what I'll tell mine, if I see them. I'm not sure I could even face them, after all the shit I've lied to them about since I met Mike."

"I'm sure they'd forgive you."

"Yeah. Can I forgive myself? Don't know. Probably doesn't matter. Like you said … he's going to kill me."

"Right, but … What happens if you win?"

"Honestly, Tan? I don't think there's much point in worrying about what will happen if I win."

"Are there other vampires?"

"So I've been told."

"Will they come after you?" Bella smiled.

"Get out of here, Tan. Go home. Stop thinking about it. You're practically human. I can hear it in your voice. Another night and this will all seem like some bizarre dream."

"Yeah. Okay. Can't say it was nice meeting you, Bella – things were too fucked up to call any of it 'nice' – but I'm glad I know you, if that means anything."

"It means a lot." Tan looked around.

"I'm glad to leave. I don't know how you stood this place for so long."

"It's easier if you're high all the time." Tan headed for the door. When she reached it, she turned.

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

"Goodbye. Good luck." Bella looked over at her, and smiled again.

"Bye, Tan. Thanks." Tan waved, turned and disappeared through the door.

Bella sat, Alice dozing behind her, and watched as smoke curled up into the darkness, lost in thought, lost in her plans for revenge.

Midnight shopping was easier in New York than anywhere else in the world, and Bella had little trouble finding the supplies she needed.

She already had Mike's gun and bullets to go with it, the extra clips found in a desk drawer. To these she added a machete, purchased at a hardware store, and even a few wooden stakes, although seeing them sitting in the car truly drove home how futile it all was.

Wooden stakes? For Carlisle? Bella drove from spot to spot, trying not to think about it, picking up things she thought she might need. Alice amused herself by playing with the various lit switches and dials inside the car.

Eventually the incessant noise of the radio flipping from station to station faded into the background. She and Alice fed on a homeless man under a bridge somewhere in Brooklyn, but Bella found her thirst waning early.

It was starting: she was becoming human again. They left the city around four in the morning, heading toward Binghamton. There she found a motel.

When the coming sun forced her into sleep, Bella was glad for it. She was ready for the end.

The drive was miserable, the walk worse. They ditched the car a few miles from the mansion, and made their way toward the house in a downpour that wanted to be snow, couldn't quite manage it, and settled for sleet instead.

Bella smoked, walked, saying nothing. The gun was jammed into the waistband of her pants. The machete hung in a sheath from her belt.

She hadn't even bothered to bring the stakes. Bella walked. Alice stumbled along behind her, insisting on walking but occasionally dropping to all fours to catch up.

The mansion emerged from the surrounding trees like a horror-movie haunted house. Huge, dark, lurking like a thing alive.

It seemed as if the evil of its owner, held back perhaps by Edward's presence, had engulfed it. She found herself losing her resolve.

Did she really want to be here? Surely this was madness. Hopeless. The fear pressed on her, taunting and shoving, trying to force her back to the car and away from the mansion.

Bella fought against it. She thought of Edward, forcing herself to contemplate the awful truth: he was gone, never coming back, and she would have to live without him.

She thought of all of the things they had meant to do together, of the time they had planned to spend, and it seemed her heart would break. The hurt brought anger.

The anger brought hate, and Bella looked up at the mansion with loathing in her eyes. Carlisle was up there, somewhere. He wouldn't know that she had returned. There might be some chance for surprise, some possibility of success.

"Coming for you, Carlisle. Going to cut out your heart, eat it in front of you, and then set you on fire." Bella snarled up at the mansion, and again moved forward.

The front entrance was lit. Too dangerous. Too obvious. Bella knelt next to Alice, whispered in her ear.

"Alice, I know you can understand me if you try. Please try. Do you know if there's a back door? A side entrance? Something?" Alice looked back at her, confused but wanting to help.

"See that? That's a door, but that one's _bad_, Alice. Is there a different door? Somewhere else?" Sudden understanding dawned in Alice's eyes, and she began to squirm about, excited to have the answer. She pointed at the side of the mansion, pulling at Bella's hand.

"Okay, Alice. Good. Thank you." They crept along, skirting the edge of the forest on the mansion's west end, keeping the shadows.

The lawn was soft and wet, muddy in spots. Freezing water sprayed up with each footstep. The sleet kept falling from the sky, and Bella and Alice both were both soon soaked and filthy.

A normal human might have been succumbing to hypothermia, but Bella was still mostly vampire, and barely felt the cold. Bella caught sight of an indentation in the wall to her right; a door, possibly a servant's entrance.

It was unlit and quiet. There was nothing between them and the entrance except wet grass and a few cultivated trees. Rotten crab-apples littered the ground, slowly returning to the soil.

Alice lead. Bella kept her eyes to the ground, afraid to look at the mansion. The sense of menace was palpable, like a wet cloth that wrapped them, stifling, suffocating.

Bella felt as if she could barely breathe. They were nearly there when Alice stopped short with a sudden yipping noise. Bella looked up, and at once felt her limbs go weak.

There before them was a shadow within the shadows, dark and looming, a presence so powerful it seemed to beat upon her like a physical force. Carlisle. There. Waiting.

"Hello Bella." Bella could not find words, could barely look. "You've come back to finish this, have you? And you've brought my daughter. How lovely. Alice, you have been a _very _bad girl. I thought we had trained you better than this." Sudden anger blazed in Bella, and she found her voice.

"Don't you talk to her like she's your fucking dog, Carlisle!" Carlisle turned his attention again to Bella, focusing his gaze on her.

She stood up to it as best she could, teeth clenched, and holding on to her hatred as an anchor, remembering Edward. It was the only way to keep from screaming under the onslaught of his gaze.

"I will talk to her, little girl, however I please." Calm turned suddenly to rage in his eyes, and Carlisle bent forward, eyes blazing, snarling at Alice.

She cried out first in fear, and then in pain. Carlisle never touched her. Alice thrashed on the ground, wailing, left finally lying on her side, shuddering and weeping pink vampire tears.

Bella heard herself screaming at Carlisle. Semi-words. Noises of rage and hate and terror. Carlisle ignored her.

"Now, Alice. Go!" he roared, and sudden strength seemed to flow into Alice's body. She leapt up and ran, reverting to all fours, pelting across the yard to the forest, yelping.

Bella felt tears on her cheeks, hot like branding irons against the cold and the slush. She was growling obscenities at Carlisle, over and over, unable to stop. Carlisle smiled at her, quiet, in control once again.

"You're a fascinating young woman, Bella, but too good. Too good. It is in many ways a shame to destroy you, but I think that were I to break you, I would destroy the same qualities that make you so intriguing."

"Fuck you."

"No, little girl, don't you remember? I'm possessed of no such abilities." Carlisle chuckled. The sound was like turning earth. Like scraping stones.

"I'm here to kill you, Carlisle."

"I know. Oh, I know. You might even have succeeded in surprising me. I must admit that this is the _last _place I had expected you ever to return. The very last. Yes, you might have come upon me unawares, and at least had that small satisfaction before your death. Alas, Bella, you have not. I have had some help." Bella knew it before he spoke her name.

Carlisle smiled. Moved aside. Gestured. "Is this not true, Tan?"

Bella turned to meet the eyes of her betrayer.


	40. Chapter 40

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 40**

**I'm sorry**

"I'm sorry, Bella." Tan looked sick with fear and shame and regret. "I'm so sorry. Bella, I'm sorry."

"You fucking bitch …"

"You don't understand!" Tan was crying. "He came to me last night, after I left. He said if I didn't tell him what you were going to do, that he'd kill you anyway, and he'd never finish me! I didn't have a choice!" Bella was taken aback.

"Never finish you?" Tan took a step forward.

"He's a god, Bella. We could be children of God. You know what it's like. Never sick, never weak. How could I _not _want it?"

"Not like this, Tan. You don't want what he's offering."

"I do! He gave me a taste of the blood last night. It was … oh, God. I want it. I need it!" Carlisle observed them, silent, smiling to himself. Bella whirled, faced him, hatred now beating down the last of her fear.

"Tell her! Tell her the truth! Tell her what your blood does!"

"The truth, Bella? The truth is that I have escaped the curse of my blood. I have discovered, through much experimentation, that my blood can be diluted. I can have now what I could never have before: a true fledgling, dedicated and attentive. I will dole out my blood in small amounts, and slowly Tanya will be transformed."

"A slave, Carlisle. That's what she'll always be to you. You'll never finish her, and even if you do, you'll keep her here forever."

"Can you take the word of this prostitute, Tanya? This unclean whore who would throw away your chance at immortality for the sake of her dead lover?" Bella turned back to Tan, plaintive.

"Tan, please …"

"I'm sorry, Bella." Tan took another step forward. A third. The distance was rapidly closing. Carlisle spoke again.

"This end was inevitable, Bella, from the moment you murdered my daughter." Bella closed her eyes and felt despair welling.

It ate at her courage once again. Accept this? Get it over with? Lie down and die? Inside her something grew. A spark became a flicker, a flicker a blaze. Death meant reunion with Edward, so what reason was there to fear it? If she must die, so be it.

She would do so on her own terms, though, not like this. Tan was nearly within grabbing distance. Bella looked up at her, met her eyes, and shook her head.

"I'm so sorry, Tan." Action as instinct. Bella moved so quickly that Tan had no chance of stopping her. Carlisle could have, if he'd wanted to, but Carlisle simply stood where he was, his black grin never wavering.

In one swift move, she drew Mike's gun from the waistband of her pants, levelled it at the girl in front of her, and fired. Once. Twice. A third shot went wild, but it didn't matter.

The first bullet hit Tan in the neck. The second entered at her forehead and removed the top half of Tan's skull, spraying it backward in gout of bone and brain.

Tan's eyes looked confused for a moment, and then went blank and lifeless. She exhaled in a long, rattling sigh, and dropped to the ground.

Bella was already spinning, pointing the gun at Carlisle, and now he moved. She felt it yanked from her grip before she could squeeze off a shot. A hand she couldn't see collided with her midsection and sent her hurtling backwards, rain-softened ground rising up to meet her.

On pavement, the landing would have shattered bone. Bella lay in the grass, writhing in pain. Carlisle towered over her.

"You're very good at making things difficult, Bella." Bella wheezed, finding her breath.

"Fuckin' A."

"Can you run?"

"Break as many of my fucking ribs as you want, bastard. I can run."

"Then I think you had better do so. Who knows? The forest _is _quite dark. Perhaps I shall lose you." Bella looked up at the smiling figure of death above her, laughing to itself at this little piece of nonsense.

Carlisle wanted a chase, that was all; a little action after so many years without. Bella knew it, and knew that her last chance was rapidly expiring.

She reached into the interior pocket of her leather jacket, and brought out the only hope she had left. White powder, some of it clumped with moisture, some still dry. Heroin.

Tan had found it in Mike's safe, and Bella had brought it with her. She had no interest in it now, not for herself, not for Jessica, not for Alice. But maybe for Carlisle. Bella hurled the drug at his face, heard him inhale in surprise, pulled herself to her feet, and ran for the forest.

_That drug, Edward, more than any other, is poison to our kind. _

Carlisle's words, echoing in her brain as Bella had stared into the safe, at the bags of heroin Mike kept therein.

This was not the street grade junk he gave to his girls, nor even the private supply of cleaner product he kept for special occasions.

This was uncut, raw, and too powerful yet for use. Now it coated Carlisle's lungs, his nasal passages, the ducts of his eyes.

Bella could hear him screaming. Pain, rage, hate; Bella heard the depths of her own soul reflected back at her in Carlisle's voice, and grinned with malice as she ran.

She did not know if the heroin would kill him, or only slow him down and give her a few moments more to live before he tore her limb from limb. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore, except the deep, black well of joy within her.

She had done damage to a god. She had hurt the thing that could not be hurt. Bella laughed as she ran a maniacal cackle of glee and hatred. She slipped, slid; fell down a short, rocky embankment, cuts on her arms and face, still laughing.

Hysterical, now, and barely able to run. Something seemed to stab her in the side with every gasp. Bella didn't care. Her laughter came in gasps and shrieks.

Behind her, she could hear Carlisle crashing through the bushes. Roaring. Snarling. Bella screamed obscenities back at him, egging him on, daring him to kill her, laughing at his rage.

The path led to a sheer rock wall, the tangled underbrush on either side too thick to climb through. Bella skidded to a halt under the limbs of a tall oak, and looked around in desperation. She was trapped.

Behind her, she felt Carlisle's presence growing. There was no chance that way, and no other alternative. Death had come for her. Bella turned, put her back to the rock, and faced that death grinning.

Carlisle staggered into the clearing and came to a stop ten feet in front of her, his face twisted with hate. He coughed, rubbed an arm across his eyes, wobbled slightly, and Bella knew she had hurt him badly.

"You like it, fucker?" she screamed at the figure. "How does it feel? You flying high yet?"

"I'm going to cut the skin from your body in strips. I'm going to hang you upside-down. Keep the … blood at your head. Keep you alive." Carlisle's voice gurgled.

He turned to one side and dry heaved, broke into a fit of coughing. There was blood on his face, and Bella realized the heroin was eating away the soft tissue of his mouth and lungs. Carlisle swung back toward her, and his eyes spoke now only of death. Bella beckoned to him.

"Don't tease me, sweetheart. Do it. _Do it!_" Carlisle lurched forward, moving at a fraction of his former speed, unsteady in his step.

Bella unhooked her machete and prepared for death. Something dropped from the tree above, hit Carlisle with full force, and knocked him from his feet.

Snarling, screaming, writhing limbs. Alice. Bella howled in triumph, racing forward, raving, cackling.

"Alice! What are you _doing_?!" Carlisle's voice was weak. Confused. Its power was lost, and this more than anything filled Bella with hope.

Alice was at her peak, energized by rage and hatred, and the desire to protect her friend. Now was the time, yet Bella could not get a clear shot with the machete without hurting the girl.

"Alice, move! You have to move!" Too late. Carlisle shoved forward, and threw Alice from him.

The vampire girl collided with Bella, knocked her backward, and knocked the machete from her hand. Carlisle advanced now, still fast, despite the heroin.

Alice got in his way, was knocked aside, and landed hard. Bella could hear the crack of her head on rock from six feet away, like ice snapping on a lake in midwinter.

Bella fell to her knees, scrabbling at the ground. Reaching, searching, her eyes never leaving Carlisle's advancing form. She felt the machete's handle, clasped it, and brought it up in a last, desperate arc.

She swung the heavy blade with all of her strength, screaming prayers in a nonsense language to an indistinct God. Prayers for speed. Prayers for strength. Prayers that it was not too late.

The blade caught Carlisle just below the chin, carving into the skin of his neck. For Bella, it was like chopping at stone. She felt pain lance through her arm as muscles separated, tore, gave out, but did not draw back, did not stop her swing.

Carlisle's head separated from his body, flew up and backward into the air, hit the ground rolling, and came to a stop by Alice's inert form. Bella rolled away from the headless trunk, which stood for a moment as if welded to the ground.

Great black jets sprayed forth from the ragged stump of neck, and the hands clutched at its sides as if searching still to tear Bella apart. Then at last like Goliath it fell, borne down by its own weight, and lay still upon the ground.

Carlisle, the dark god, elder vampire of the New World, lay dead.

Blackness overtook Bella, and she lay on her back for some time, covered in filth and blood, heedless of the slush soaking into her clothes.

Gasping, sobbing, calling out to Edward, Bella lay on the cold ground until she at last realized that Edward wasn't coming, and dragged herself to a sitting position. Alice.

She made her way to Alice's body and bent down, fearing the worst. To her relief, Alice's body was already healing, the flow of blood from the wound on the forehead slowing.

She was breathing in deep, slow, steady breaths. Bella shook her gently, and Alice opened her eyes. She sat up, groggy, and looked at Bella, then at the head on the ground, and broke into tears.

Bella held her tightly, kissing her face, her hair, unable to believe they had both survived it.

"Oh, Alice. Oh, sweetheart. We did it. He's dead. Alice, he's dead!" They took the head back with them to the house. Bella wanted it nowhere near the body.

She knew that vampires possessed formidable powers of regeneration, and if someone had told her that Carlisle's head could somehow reattach itself to his body, she would not have doubted them.

They emerged from the forest together, staggering, leaning on each other for strength and making their way slowly toward the mansion, toward warmth.

Bella's head was throbbing, though she couldn't remember hitting it on anything. Her right arm felt as if on fire, every muscle torn and pulled.

Alice shuffled along, leaning against her, still dizzy and sick from the blow to the head.

Neither woman was capable of mustering more strength than was necessary to keep their limbs moving. The side door was locked, and so they made their way toward the front.

Bella didn't know what she would do if that door wouldn't open. Break a window, perhaps. It didn't matter. They needed to get inside.

The mansion was hope where no hope had been. It was warmth. Survival. Bella wondered if she was crying. Her face was too numb from cold to tell.

The front door opened with ease, swinging wide, opening on the rooms in which she had spent the past two months. Bella made a choked, sobbing noise of gratitude and stumbled inside, slamming the door behind her.

She eased Alice down onto the plush oriental carpet, and staggered to the entrance to the basement. She threw Carlisle's head down the stairs, and then bolted the heavy oak door at their top. The pain in her head and arm were making her dizzy.

Bella stumbled forward into the first room she could see. The media room. Rose's blood still stained the carpet, and Bella looked away. She struggled to one of the couches, fell down upon it, and let black unconsciousness take her.

She woke in the early morning, the sunlight still painful on her skin, and moved to a couch that lay in the shadows. Here she slept the rest of the day, and into the next evening.

When at last she came out of her slumber, she found Alice curled up next to her. Her head still ached, but only slightly. Her arm was better, though still painful to move.

Bella felt very human indeed, and wondered if her regression to that form had been hastened as she had healed.

She sat up, looking around, trying to determine what hour of the day it was. The media room's windows were dark. Bella could see smears of dirt in the hallway, and realized that during the day, Alice had dragged herself into the front closet.

"Smart girl," Bella said. She turned on one of the televisions.

Sights and sounds flashed by, news reports on things she didn't care about. She flipped channels and found a cable access station broadcasting the time and date.

Near midnight, mid-December. It would be Christmas soon, the television informed her. Had she done her shopping? To Bella it felt like she had lived ten years in the course of the past two months.

She turned off the TV and stood on shaky legs. She was starving, but not for blood. What she really wanted was a cheeseburger.

This realization made her laugh, even as tears sprung to her eyes. Bella made her way upstairs into the room she had shared with Edward.

Her clothes were still there, in closet and dressers. Bathroom supplies, books of poetry, it was as if she had never left.

Bella thought of Edward, lying next to her on the bed, and the ache in her heart leapt to the forefront.

"I could kill you a thousand times, Carlisle, and we'd never be even. You took everything I had."

Bella went to take a shower.


	41. Chapter 41

**I don't own anything!**

**Chapter 41**

**Returning**

They lived at the mansion for six weeks, and in that time Alice began to show definite signs of returning to humanity.

Christmas came and went, the New Year began. Bella and Alice healed. As her mind changed, Alice began to behave in new ways. She mimicked sounds, and was beginning to understand simple questions that Bella asked. She was still strong. Still fast.

Bella wondered if the changes that vampirism had made to the girl's physiology would every truly leave.

She wondered if Alice would ever fully regain her mind. She didn't know. There were only two moments of unpleasantness left for Bella during her stay at the mansion.

The first occurred early: the burning of Carlisle's remains. Bella had taken care of the head first, out in the yard, dousing it with gasoline and covering it with kindling.

She'd taken the machete to the skull, blackened and cracked by the flames, and scattered the pieces around the grounds. She'd repeated the process with the body.

If Carlisle could somehow heal himself, it was beyond her power to do anything more to stop it.

The second occurrence came a week later. Exploring the mansion, she had come upon a staircase, behind a set of iron doors at the back of Carlisle's study.

The stairs led to depths deeper even than the basement in which she had found herself, that first night after meeting Edward.

Bella had ventured down into the dark and foreboding space with trepidation, holding nothing more than a single flashlight.

The sight upon reaching the bottom had forced a cry of despair from her lips.

There, on a stone bier, lay her lover. Edward, pale and broken, was spread out on the slab. His body had been cleaned and dressed in a dark suit.

It appeared as if Carlisle had been preparing to perform some sort of ceremony.

Bella had run across the room, bit into her left wrist hard enough to bring blood, barely aware of the pain, and held it above Edward's open .

Crying, begging, Bella held her neck against his lips. They were cold and dead. Edward did not move, did not change, and Bella wrapped her arms about the corpse and wept.

She knew that she could not bring herself to burn Edward, and so left him there, climbing the stairs and closing the doors, piling objects in front of them.

Stone statues, marble tables, anything heavy. Alice helped her move them.

Bella hoped Edward had found peace. She hoped he was somewhere with Kate, loving her, telling her stories of Bella and what fun they would have whenever Bella finally joined them.

She wondered if she had the strength to go on without him, and could not find an answer.

She wondered if some night she might awaken to find a vampire hovering above her, eyes like fire, bringing retribution for Carlisle's death.

She wondered if any of it even mattered.


End file.
